Has Evolution Been Proven to be True ?

[The Edge]

Originally Posted by Tea on tuesday

LET'S DO THIS!!!!

Thanks for the response Tea.

Sorry to disappoint, but the questions are not mine. This was the topic of debate amongst many of the biologists at the University I attended a few years ago. They were and remain quite divided on the subject. This was such a big deal at the time that the topic spilled over into my Philosophy class, as it does have some of its basis in this area. I know we have some people here who claim Philosophy has no place in Science, but many of our greatest discoveries were born out of philosophy, such as "I wonder what it would be like to ride on a beam of light?" -Einstein

Much of your answers given were brought up by one side, so I can't say that you are necessarily wrong, however, each side had their refutations, and neither side could conclusively prove their case. From my standpoint, both sides have valid points and reasoning behind what they believe. At this time we just don't have enough evidence to be fully swayed by either.

I bring this up because it's not something you normally hear about. Agreement on Evolution, but disagreement on the mechanics of it (other than "God did it LOL"). From what I've seen, scientists don't like to be seen as not in agreement because they believe that it somehow damages the reputation of science. I think it's healthy, and even though you may disagree on some of those questions, I think if you take a step back you would see there is relevance to the ideas presented. As I stated previously, sometimes you need to look at the whole to see the connection and brilliance of it all.

[Lejina Bloodbath]

Originally Posted by The Edge

For billions of years after the Big Bang, no other molecule replicated itself.

Prions disagree.


Btw, the next one who implies that Evolution encompass the creation of life, confuses scientific Law with Theory or who says Evolution is just a theory, Im going to reach out through my monitor and punch you in the face.

[Daelos]

Originally Posted by The Edge

I bring this up because it's not something you normally hear about.

I am sorry to disappoint you, but your questions were not "new" or unusual, but mostly a rehash of normal arguments against the ToE.

[The Edge]

Originally Posted by Daelos

I am sorry to disappoint you, but your questions were not "new" or unusual, but mostly a rehash of normal arguments against the ToE.

Did you even read it? These were not arguments against Evolution. I think we'd all agree that it is essentially a scientific fact. What I present are disagreements on how and why it works the way it does. And I highly doubt they were the typical points you hear brought up.

[Lumie]

no one can explain how the big bang even happened nor where the matter came from and science is at a complete loss to explain how

there has never been a single life form or organism created through abiogenesis by any scientist in any laboratory anywhere in the world and the reason is because it's impossible and only a supernatural source(God) can explain lifes origins

[TheMarauder]

Originally Posted by Lumie

no one can explain how the big bang even happened nor where the matter came from and science is at a complete loss to explain how

there has never been a single life form or organism created through abiogenesis by any scientist in any laboratory anywhere in the world and the reason is because it's impossible and only a supernatural source(God) can explain lifes origins

thread officially dead, move on guys

[Daelos]

Originally Posted by Lumie

no one can explain how the big bang even happened nor where the matter came from and science is at a complete loss to explain how

there has never been a single life form or organism created through abiogenesis by any scientist in any laboratory anywhere in the world and the reason is because it's impossible and only a supernatural source(God) can explain lifes origins

The Higgs boson has not yet been observed, it follows that all electrons were created by a flying teapot. QED.

[Hathe]

Originally Posted by Lumie

there has never been a single life form or organism created through abiogenesis by any scientist in any laboratory anywhere in the world and the reason is because it's impossible and only a supernatural source(God) can explain lifes origins

u dont find new life in peenut butter jars duh lol

[aychamo_aycono]

Originally Posted by The Edge

In your previous post you said "In a closed system ... evolution will occur." Is that not predictability?

Also, I'm sure a lot of the X-Men fans here will tell you that mutations are not always 'extremely minor.' Sometimes Nature takes a creative leap.

On the topic of randomness, are you sure this is the case? When I look at nature, I do not see randomness. I see cohesion and purpose.

I'd like to present some reasons that are not my own, on why this area of evolution is still up for debate:

1. How does nature take creative leaps? In the fossil record there are repeated gaps that no "missing link" can fill. The most glaring is the leap by which inorganic molecules turned into DNA. For billions of years after the Big Bang, no other molecule replicated itself. No other molecule was remotely as complicated. No other molecule has the capacity to string billions of pieces of information that remain self-sustaining despite countless transformations into all the life forms that DNA has produced.

2. If mutations are random, why does the fossil record demonstrate so many positive mutations -- those that lead to new species -- and so few negative ones? Random chance should produce useless mutations thousands of times more often than positive ones.

3. How does evolution know where to stop? The pressure to evolve is constant; therefore it is hard to understand why evolution isn't a constant. Yet sharks and turtles and insects have been around for hundreds of millions of years without apparent evolution except to diversify among their kind. These species stopped in place while others, notably hominids, kept evolving with tremendous speed, even though our primate ancestors didn't have to. The many species of monkeys which persist in original form tell us that human evolution, like the shark's, could have ended. Why didn't it?

4. Evolutionary biology is stuck with regard to simultaneous mutations. One kind of primordial skin cell, for example, mutated into scales, fur, and feathers. These are hugely different adaptations, and each is tremendously complex. How could one kind of cell take three different routes purely at random?

5. If design doesn't imply intelligence, why are we so intelligent? The human body is composed of cells that evolved from one-celled blue-green algae, yet that algae is still around. Why did DNA pursue the path of greater and greater intelligence when it could have perfectly survived in one-celled plants and animals, as in fact it did?

6. Why do forms replicate themselves without apparent need? The helix or spiral shape found in the shell of the chambered nautilus, the center of sunflowers, spiral galaxies, and DNA itself seems to be such a replication. It is mathematically elegant and appears to be a design that was suited for hundreds of totally unrelated functions in nature.

7. What happens when simple molecules come into contact with life? Oxygen is a simple molecule in the atmosphere, but once it enters our lungs, it becomes part of the cellular machinery, and far from wandering about randomly, it precisely joins itself with other simple molecules, and together they perform cellular tasks, such as protein-building, whose precision is millions of times greater than anything else seen in nature. If the oxygen doesn't change physically -- and it doesn't -- what invisible change causes it to acquire intelligence the instant it contacts life?

8. How can whole systems appear all at once? The leap from reptile to bird is proven by the fossil record. Yet this apparent step in evolution has many simultaneous parts. It would seem that Nature, to our embarrassment, simply struck upon a good idea, not a simple mutation. If you look at how a bird is constructed, with hollow bones, toes elongated into wing bones, feet adapted to clutching branches instead of running, etc., none of the mutations by themselves give an advantage to survival, but taken altogether, they are a brilliant creative leap. Nature takes such leaps all the time, and our attempt to reduce them to bits of a jigsaw puzzle that just happened to fall into place to form a beautifully designed picture seems faulty on the face of it. Why do we insist that we are allowed to have brilliant ideas while Nature isn't?

9. Darwin's iron law was that evolution is linked to survival, but it was long ago pointed out that "survival of the fittest" is a tautology. Some mutations survive, and therefore we call them fittest. Yet there is no obvious reason why the dodo, kiwi, and other flightless birds are more fit; they just survived for a while. DNA itself isn't fit at all; unlike a molecule of iron or hydrogen, DNA will blow away into dust if left outside on a sunny day or if attacked by pathogens, x-rays, solar radiation, and mutations like cancer. The key to survival is more than fighting to see which organism is fittest.

10. Competition itself is suspect, for we see just as many examples in Nature of cooperation. Bees cooperate, obviously, to the point that when a honey bee stings an enemy, it acts to save the whole hive. At the moment of stinging, a honeybee dies. In what way is this a survival mechanism, given that the bee doesn't survive at all? For that matter, since a mutation can only survive by breeding -- "survival" is basically a simplified term for passing along gene mutations from one generation to the next -- how did bees develop drones in the hive, that is, bees who cannot and never do have sex?

11. How did symbiotic cooperation develop? Certain flowers, for example, require exactly one kind of insect to pollinate them. A flower might have a very deep calyx, or throat, for example than only an insect with a tremendously long tongue can reach. Both these adaptations are very complex, and they serve no outside use. Nature was getting along very well without this symbiosis, as evident in the thousands of flowers and insects that persist without it. So how did numerous generations pass this symbiosis along if it is so specialized?

12. Finally, why are life forms beautiful? Beauty is everywhere in Nature, yet it serves no obvious purpose. Once a bird of paradise has evolved its incredibly gorgeous plumage, we can say that it is useful to attract mates. But doesn't it also attract predators, for we simultaneously say that camouflaged creatures like the chameleon survive by not being conspicuous. In other words, exact opposites are rationalized by the same logic. This is no logic at all. Non-beautiful creatures have survived for millions of years, so have gorgeous ones. The notion that this is random seems weak on the face of it.

You know, everyone on these forums always likes to say things about how the average internet user is smarter than the average person in general. But then I read these threads, and I realize how many of you have gone full retard.

The thing is, I won't waste my time arguing with any internet person about evolution. If you (or anyone) wants to think it's not true, or think you have some magical slice of data that disproves the whole of it (meanwhile the whole of academia disagrees with you), then go for it. Be your individual and incorrect self. It doesn't affect me one way or the other.

But it's just sad. It's truly sad that someone's brain functions at such a lower and less efficient way that they can't understand the most fundamental scientific theory.

[aychamo_aycono]

Originally Posted by Lejina Bloodbath

Btw, the next one who implies that Evolution encompass the creation of life, confuses scientific Law with Theory or who says Evolution is just a theory, Im going to reach out through my monitor and punch you in the face.

I honestly can't read this thread but on the topic of law vs theory, and I'm not writing this to correct you because I don't know what you think. Law is an old school term we don't use anymore. When we have a scientific theory now it's the same thing as law meant back in the old days. We say theory to imply that the extremely concise and coherent set of scientific ideas are amenable to correction in the rare circumstance they are wrong (by wrong, I mean failure to include some variable, etc.) This is what makes science beautiful, the fact that we actually love our errors more than our non-errors.

(For an example, Newton's LAW of gravity was incomplete, and was later further enriched by Einstein's THEORY of General Relativity)

[GaliemVaelant]

Originally Posted by Lumie

Creationism and Evolution are both true and the Bible does not say that Adam and Eve were the first humans on earth nor does it say the Earth is 6,000 years old and nor does it say that Dinosaurs never existed.

Actually, the Bible is inconsistent, when it comes to creation. The whole of Genesis is written chronologically, either with exception to one thing or there is a blatant contridiction in the Christian creationist canon.

Originally Posted by Genesis 1:27

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Cool! So God created man and woman together, at the same time, so they wouldn't be lonely and could have sexx0rz wuwu^^

Originally Posted by Genesis 1:28-31, 2:1

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

Cool, so the heavens and earth were finished, so God was done making them, and needed a day off. I would too kekeke

Originally Posted by Genesis 2:2-7

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Wait, I thought man was made on the sixth day. But now it's after the seventh day? But... I thought all the heavens and earth were done being made (Chapter two, verse one) and that man was made at the same time as woman on the sixth day (Chapter one, verse 27). Wait, wait, wait -- So God showed the first man all the fruit he had made for him, and THEN he made the man? I'm confused. But at least we know male and female made he them, at the same time, right?

Originally Posted by Genesis 2:18

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

Wait, so man and woman were not made at the same time, but they were, on both the sixth and the eighth days? Weird, all of the book of Genesis is written chronologically, except for the creation of man which seems to take place at two different times and in two different ways simultaneously. Seems to be like any way that this is resolved in explanation would merely be a theory. That is, unless someone can fetch Adam and Eve so we can ask them a few questions, or maybe God would like to come down here to clear this up?

So creationism is just a theory too? Wow. Well, at least if something isn't written clearly about evolution, I can find an evolutionary biologist, biophysicist, or biochemist to break it down for me. To be optimistic, maybe God will make a few new books for the Bible soon too, because I'm dying to know what really happened to Judas Iscariot. I mean, was he disemboweled (like in Acts) or hung (like in Matthew)? Matthew and Paul didn't have their story straight, so

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Matthew and Paul killed Judas

...but no need to spoil it for everyone till the next book comes out. Let's just hope God doesn't use a pen-name this time.

[Tuco]

lol @ The Edge producing questions from his university and the militant evolutionists jumping on him.

One cool book I wouldn't mind reading is the weird ass animals we have today, and what science believes is that animal's evolutionary path and why each step benefited the species.

Also, if science is so great, why is it constantly changing whenever new information is gathered? (sarcasm joke)

[Lejina Bloodbath]

Originally Posted by aychamo_aycono

I honestly can't read this thread but on the topic of law vs theory, and I'm not writing this to correct you because I don't know what you think. Law is an old school term we don't use anymore. When we have a scientific theory now it's the same thing as law meant back in the old days. We say theory to imply that the extremely concise and coherent set of scientific ideas are amenable to correction in the rare circumstance they are wrong (by wrong, I mean failure to include some variable, etc.) This is what makes science beautiful, the fact that we actually love our errors more than our non-errors.

(For an example, Newton's LAW of gravity was incomplete, and was later further enriched by Einstein's THEORY of General Relativity)

Laws are still utilised plenty. A law is something very concise and simple, giving a mathematical explanation to something observable. They are essentially strictly mathematical equations. A Theory is much more involved and bring a sense of why, how or at least an explanation of what is going on.

Those who find errors in science are indeed often the greatest heroes.

[Mimirswell]

Originally Posted by GaliemVaelant

Actually, the Bible is inconsistent, when it comes to creation.

You realized you just got trolled by Lumie. That's pretty sad considering how blatantly obvious it was (and it's Lumie).

[Dr. Funkenstein]

Originally Posted by brekk

In a closed system with those 3 things evolution will occur. This is not religion versus science. This is absolute truth. Drug resistant germs are a great current example of this in progress.

Sorry. Science is not absolute truth. People have just been saying that science is able to change as observable evidence is gathered. Absolute truth doesn't change. Scienctific knowledge is the sum of what can currently be observed. Period. Parts of truth can be extrapolated from those observations, but science isn't interested in doing so. Science is interested in observable fact. Once it tries to go beyond observable fact, it becomes something other than science...like philosophy

There's a reason why social scientists are often excluded from the club.