Quizzes & Puzzles18 mins ago
Creation / Evolution.
400 Answers
What can you say that you know one thing about evolution?
Answers
Quite aside from anything else, you are still setting far too much store by the people who are speaking, and far too little by what they are actually saying. Evaluate the evidence for yourself, if you can -- what one PhD says, or a Professor, or even a Nobel Laureate or two, means nothing. They may be right or they may be wrong, but who they are is irrelevant to that....
14:20 Thu 06th Feb 2020
Professor Johnathon Wells and others would support me, how Darwinian Evolution scientists have been disingenuous in promoting their theory and totally reject the evidence for design.
I am not a biologist, but neither are you.
You keep repeating the same mantra of evolution without ever taking the trouble to investigate for yourselves.
I link videos to provide the proof of what I am claiming, but you dismiss them without givingnthem any consideration at all.
So you can continue to *** me off or you can consider the evidence.
I know what my money will be on :-)
I am not a biologist, but neither are you.
You keep repeating the same mantra of evolution without ever taking the trouble to investigate for yourselves.
I link videos to provide the proof of what I am claiming, but you dismiss them without givingnthem any consideration at all.
So you can continue to *** me off or you can consider the evidence.
I know what my money will be on :-)
Theland. The last video you posted was rubbish. It started with videos of buildings being explosively demolished and waffling on for several minutes comparing Evolution with The Emperor's New Clothes.
As soon as they made a claim disputing the science by saying there were no transition fossils between scales and feathers they were wrong.
I expect this video will be no different.
Cut to the chase and write out something claimed in the video for discussion.
As soon as they made a claim disputing the science by saying there were no transition fossils between scales and feathers they were wrong.
I expect this video will be no different.
Cut to the chase and write out something claimed in the video for discussion.
Theland // There is design in nature that can only be explained by a designer, not random mutation and natural selection.//
That is a completely unsubstantiated statement. You offer no evidence at all.
You have not engaged in any discussion of the detailed explanations I and others have made of the science.
That is a completely unsubstantiated statement. You offer no evidence at all.
You have not engaged in any discussion of the detailed explanations I and others have made of the science.
Theland. The last video you posted was rubbish. It started with videos of buildings being explosively demolished and waffling on for several minutes comparing Evolution with The Emperor's New Clothes.
As soon as they made a claim disputing the science by saying there were no transition fossils between scales and feathers they were wrong.
This latest video link will be no different.
Cut to the chase and write out something claimed with evidence in the video for discussion.
As soon as they made a claim disputing the science by saying there were no transition fossils between scales and feathers they were wrong.
This latest video link will be no different.
Cut to the chase and write out something claimed with evidence in the video for discussion.
Theland. Nature has been thoroughly explained as the result of inherited random variations and natural selection over billions of years.
Natural selection is a very powerful mechanism. Only the variations that succeed continue in the process. All life we see today is the result of countless hundreds of millions (even billions) of tests where those that fail are eliminated.
It is really very simple. Only a person with no functioning intellect would fail to grasp this truth.
Natural selection is a very powerful mechanism. Only the variations that succeed continue in the process. All life we see today is the result of countless hundreds of millions (even billions) of tests where those that fail are eliminated.
It is really very simple. Only a person with no functioning intellect would fail to grasp this truth.
What's the point in marking what I said as BA when you then proceed to more or less entirely ignore the point it's making?
Science is never finished, that much is clear, and so there is always a theoretical possibility that the present consensus will be overturned. We are nowhere near that stage yet when it comes to evolution -- so, in particular, the assertion that "There is design in nature that can only be explained by a designer..." is simply not true. The more accurate assertion, which may well be true in certain cases, is something like:
"There are features of animals and plants that cannot currently be explained within the evolutionary theory."
In such cases there's further work for scientists -- which is as it should be of course! -- either to provide a theoretical explanation, or to uncover more evidence that, partially or completely, resolves these issues. But jumping to a designer is never justified in a scientific approach, because to do so is to emphasise only the gaps in the present theory and to ignore or trample roughshod over the many successes.
It's the same with other branches of science that you consistently dismiss. The incompleteness of a scientific theory is not a reason for dismissing it, nor is it even a weakness; indeed it's a strength that there's always more to be uncovered. The single biggest flaw of IDT is that it is more or less already complete as soon as it's proposed, for the very definition of a Designer that exists beyond the Universe is that it must be forever unknowable, and forever beyond examination.
In short, TheLand, I'm glad to see you asking questions and I hope you continue to do so, but the basic point I was making in my BA is that you are jumping in at the deep end all the time and that is, I fear, causing more harm than good. Why not build up from the basic principles more often? At the end you may still find yourself supporting a Design-based approach than evolutionary ones, but along the way you'll have learned loads about *why* scientists think, and work, the way they do.
Science is never finished, that much is clear, and so there is always a theoretical possibility that the present consensus will be overturned. We are nowhere near that stage yet when it comes to evolution -- so, in particular, the assertion that "There is design in nature that can only be explained by a designer..." is simply not true. The more accurate assertion, which may well be true in certain cases, is something like:
"There are features of animals and plants that cannot currently be explained within the evolutionary theory."
In such cases there's further work for scientists -- which is as it should be of course! -- either to provide a theoretical explanation, or to uncover more evidence that, partially or completely, resolves these issues. But jumping to a designer is never justified in a scientific approach, because to do so is to emphasise only the gaps in the present theory and to ignore or trample roughshod over the many successes.
It's the same with other branches of science that you consistently dismiss. The incompleteness of a scientific theory is not a reason for dismissing it, nor is it even a weakness; indeed it's a strength that there's always more to be uncovered. The single biggest flaw of IDT is that it is more or less already complete as soon as it's proposed, for the very definition of a Designer that exists beyond the Universe is that it must be forever unknowable, and forever beyond examination.
In short, TheLand, I'm glad to see you asking questions and I hope you continue to do so, but the basic point I was making in my BA is that you are jumping in at the deep end all the time and that is, I fear, causing more harm than good. Why not build up from the basic principles more often? At the end you may still find yourself supporting a Design-based approach than evolutionary ones, but along the way you'll have learned loads about *why* scientists think, and work, the way they do.
As another point, it's pretty clear in this thread that "evidence" is a much-used and much-abused term. "Evidence", in the scientific sense, must be something that is objective, or as objective as possible. It relies on experiments that can be, in principle at least, replicated by anybody else at any given time; data sets that have been subjected to rigorous statistical testing and controls; mathematics, which, when done properly, forces you to the right answer; and primary evidence the source of which is available to all so that there is no reliance on somebody else's account.
It's grating to see people bandy the word "evidence" around who clearly don't apply the proper standards of what evidence must be. A YouTube video, as one example, simply doesn't register on this scale, and is at best the starting point for further investigations rather than somehow the "proof", let alone the evidence, of anything.
It's grating to see people bandy the word "evidence" around who clearly don't apply the proper standards of what evidence must be. A YouTube video, as one example, simply doesn't register on this scale, and is at best the starting point for further investigations rather than somehow the "proof", let alone the evidence, of anything.
It is a fact though, that many scientists who even consider design, find themselves deprived of funding, demoted or even sacked from their positions.
Why? What is the evolutionary scientific authorities afraid of?
Lies continue to be told to support evolution, like the embryonic chart that has been reproduced over and over again.
Sir Fred Hoy!e, himself an atheist, did not totally dismiss an intelligence behind the universe.
I.D. believers have a real problem. We can't put God in a test tube and conduct experiments on Him.
Why? What is the evolutionary scientific authorities afraid of?
Lies continue to be told to support evolution, like the embryonic chart that has been reproduced over and over again.
Sir Fred Hoy!e, himself an atheist, did not totally dismiss an intelligence behind the universe.
I.D. believers have a real problem. We can't put God in a test tube and conduct experiments on Him.
It's a fundamental problem if your starting point for why the present scientific consensus exists is "must be a conspiracy". It's invariably untrue, for one thing, and secondly in any case it would be possible to evaluate for yourself by following the mathematical and scientific logic that led you there.
Funding goes to places that, it is presumed, will improve the reputation of the University and advance the field of study. Fringe theories that, by your own admission, aren't really amenable to scientific scrutiny don't qualify under those criteria.
Even if they did, there is less funding available than there are people wanting to seek it. Why shouldn't universities direct that funding to where they think will give them the greatest return? Perhaps this does lead to an institutional bias, but ultimately the bias comes from the empirical truth that fringe theories tend to fall down under scrutiny without much effort in the first place. The reason IDT isn't taken seriously is because, in the end, it doesn't need to be.
Funding goes to places that, it is presumed, will improve the reputation of the University and advance the field of study. Fringe theories that, by your own admission, aren't really amenable to scientific scrutiny don't qualify under those criteria.
Even if they did, there is less funding available than there are people wanting to seek it. Why shouldn't universities direct that funding to where they think will give them the greatest return? Perhaps this does lead to an institutional bias, but ultimately the bias comes from the empirical truth that fringe theories tend to fall down under scrutiny without much effort in the first place. The reason IDT isn't taken seriously is because, in the end, it doesn't need to be.
Hmm.
In reading its defence of the claim that IDT is scientific, I'm reminded somewhat of the assertion that the Bible is the word of God because it says that it is. Just because you can map elements of IDT research to the Scientific method doesn't mean that it truly *is* scientific. In particular, Irreducible Complexity in nature is a dubious concept to test -- historically, the precedents aren't good for finding a true example of IC.
In reading its defence of the claim that IDT is scientific, I'm reminded somewhat of the assertion that the Bible is the word of God because it says that it is. Just because you can map elements of IDT research to the Scientific method doesn't mean that it truly *is* scientific. In particular, Irreducible Complexity in nature is a dubious concept to test -- historically, the precedents aren't good for finding a true example of IC.
I'm not going to claim I know enough about that one way or the other. All I'm saying is that an approach to studying the nature of life by assuming that Irreducible Complexity exists, and then trying to find an example, is flawed from the start. Better to assume that it doesn't exist at all, and see what flows from this assumption.
jim; I'm in full agreement with your post at 13:21 but one of the most hackneyed requests on these threads has always been demands by the non-religious for evidence of the existence of a higher power which by your own definition is not possible.
Even if by the scientific method it were possible to prove the existence (or not) of such a power, it would in no way help showing people how to live their lives.
Even if by the scientific method it were possible to prove the existence (or not) of such a power, it would in no way help showing people how to live their lives.
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