Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
And before that thread you were also told in this thread - 'If you believe in evolution explain this...'
Willful ignorance seems to be a pattern of yours.
And personal attacks in place of valid arguments seems to be yours.
10-22-2014, 01:23 PM
2K5Gx2km
n/a posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimmiej
And personal attacks in place of valid arguments seems to be yours.
Lol! My arguments are in those two threads where you posted significantly and lost and left only to come in here again and try these same fallacious assertions once more - there is no need for me to waste anymore time refuting them.
Lol! My arguments are in those two threads where you posted significantly and lost and left only to come in here again and try these same fallacious assertions once more - there is no need for me to waste anymore time refuting them.
Not even remotely. You are clearly conflating the word 'theory' in scientific terms, which means a model which has been rigoriously tested over and over by many individuals and which has been determined to comport with all available experiemental data in tests devised so that it could be proven false, with the colloquial use of the word 'theory', which means nothing more than any old conjecture, no matter how baseless.
Here's an example: the theory of gravity.
When amateur astronomers spot a new comet (it's almost always amateurs who do so, because there are so many more of them) swinging in from the Oort Cloud, knocked from its distant orbit by some sort of interstellar perturbation, they watch its movements for a few days, and then they plot its course. It's course is complex. Every planet in the solar system will exert an influential force on it, altering its course. So, too, will all the dozens of moons, and the myriad asteroids - though many will be so small that their effects will be too small to perceive. Anyway, if that comet is going to crash into Venus, we'll know about it months in advance and long before it's actually hurtling towards Venus, or even the place Venus will ultimately be when the impact occurs. Why? The theory of gravity - which also allows us to predict the Venusian movements that will be necessary for the impact to occur. The same theory tells us there will be solar eclipse tomorrow (October 23, 2014), visible over much of North America - and this eclipse was known to be coming hundreds of years ago. And when can never prove the eclipse will occur before it happens. Still, we know it will. Faith? That's laughable.
And, yes, it does matter that millions of physicians recommend antibiotics, and not sacrificing a chicken, for bacterial infections - and the notion this contains 'an element of faith', to quote you, is beyond absurd.
Your attempt to equate applied scientific knowledge with religious faith is a complete fail.
Empirical evidence requires the ability to RECREATE the same results over and over. Without the ability to demonstrate empirical evidence there is no validity to the theory. The effects of gravity can be recreated a billion times over. The endless theories of the creation of the universe cannot, from either perspective.
Empirical evidence requires the ability to RECREATE the same results over and over. Without the ability to demonstrate empirical evidence there is no validity to the theory. The effects of gravity can be recreated a billion times over. The endless theories of the creation of the universe cannot, from either perspective.
You are describing the scientific method which includes constructing experiments to reproduce results. That is related to, but not the same, as empirical evidence. A method is not evidence, it's a way to obtain evidence.
An argument can (and has) been made that the theory of evolution is not fully subject to the scientific method, and that is what you're really saying here.
But there are many, many things that are only indirectly observable. We don't seriously expect a hypothesis about background radiation in the universe to require someone to build an actual universe and measure the radiation. We expect them to measure the radiation that's there to see if it conforms to the hypothesis and if the hypothesis has predictive power.
Historians are in the same situation; they can't "prove", say, that Julius Caesar was ever a real person by conducting an experiment. They instead have standards of evidence relating to primary sources, different historical witnesses, and so forth. If Julius Caesar was real then we will expect to find in the historical record, x, y, and z ... and sure enough, there it is. Analysis of fossil records follow much the same principles.
We can observe the fossil record, microevolutionary changes, and other such data for whether it fits with predictions made by the theory of evolution. We can apply evolutionary principles, creating technology based upon it -- and that's just what we've done in genetic engineering, molecular biology, vaccines, many aspects of computer science, etc. That a theory (in the scientific sense of that word) has predictive power is part of what validates it.
Many aspects of evolutionary theory can be played out repeatedly in the way you describe at the microscopic level and at the microevolutionary level. Obviously a process so slow as macroevolution cannot be observed directly, only its outcomes can be observed via the fossil record, which is necessarily fragmentary in some respects.
Some aspects of Darwin's theory have been disproven and when science disproves something, unlike religion, it changes its tune. Most aspects, though, have been so thoroughly validated that they are beyond serious question.
If you have a vested interest in young earth creationism then no amount of scientific consensus will convince you. I get that. But there is nothing less proven about the theory of evolution vs gravity vs electromagnetism vs germ theory. It is a little tricker and more complex to validate in some respects but well over 150 years of work has been done in that regard.
You are describing the scientific method which includes constructing experiments to reproduce results. That is related to, but not the same, as empirical evidence. A method is not evidence, it's a way to obtain evidence.
An argument can (and has) been made that the theory of evolution is not fully subject to the scientific method, and that is what you're really saying here.
But there are many, many things that are only indirectly observable. We don't seriously expect a hypothesis about background radiation in the universe to require someone to build an actual universe and measure the radiation. We expect them to measure the radiation that's there to see if it conforms to the hypothesis and if the hypothesis has predictive power.
Historians are in the same situation; they can't "prove", say, that Julius Caesar was ever a real person by conducting an experiment. They instead have standards of evidence relating to primary sources, different historical witnesses, and so forth. If Julius Caesar was real then we will expect to find in the historical record, x, y, and z ... and sure enough, there it is. Analysis of fossil records follow much the same principles.
We can observe the fossil record, microevolutionary changes, and other such data for whether it fits with predictions made by the theory of evolution. We can apply evolutionary principles, creating technology based upon it -- and that's just what we've done in genetic engineering, molecular biology, vaccines, many aspects of computer science, etc. That a theory (in the scientific sense of that word) has predictive power is part of what validates it.
Many aspects of evolutionary theory can be played out repeatedly in the way you describe at the microscopic level and at the microevolutionary level. Obviously a process so slow as macroevolution cannot be observed directly, only its outcomes can be observed via the fossil record, which is necessarily fragmentary in some respects.
Some aspects of Darwin's theory have been disproven and when science disproves something, unlike religion, it changes its tune. Most aspects, though, have been so thoroughly validated that they are beyond serious question.
If you have a vested interest in young earth creationism then no amount of scientific consensus will convince you. I get that. But there is nothing less proven about the theory of evolution vs gravity vs electromagnetism vs germ theory. It is a little tricker and more complex to validate in some respects but well over 150 years of work has been done in that regard.
Thank you for making at least some science understandable to a guy who flirted with flunking it every year.
You really need to take your assertion to a clothing store ... because it is conspicuously bare. It might even be arrested for indecent exposure!
Explain how.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
