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Hmmm, thoughts on evolution?(no, not vs religion)

The theory of evolution does not suggest that humans evolved from apes; it suggests that we have a common ancestor. Both humans and simians (apes) have evolved a lot since our family tree split millenia ago.

Just to pick a nit, apes (and chimpanzees and orangutans) are pongids, not simians. Simians and prosimians are monkeys. Other than that you seem to have it.

The ones I find strange are the monotremes. Egg laying mammals, what a strange development.

On Darwin, why does everyone remember Charles but not Erasmus? He was even snubbed in the Scopes trial. Neither quite got the theory right, but are worth remembering...
 
Tsal said:
Well, just to fine tune you a bit, baldness starts to show, as far as I know, somewhere after the 25th year. So, a young man has plenty of time to find himself a companion, even without his higher testosterone levels driving himself into having sex even more than a regular fellow. And, as it is in modern human society, there are more important things than if you have plenty of hair or not. Some ladies even prefer baldness - perhaps it even might be that they recognize the higher testosterone level and are drawn to it by some animal instinct, one can always speculate.
I'm sorry to correct you Tsal, but my head showed signs of balding when I was about 19.:bawl: It may not be common to start loosing your hair at such an early age, but it's not that uncommon either I'm afraid. Had my growing baldness done wonders to my testosterone levels I might have been able to accept it, but it hasn't, so...
BTW, I don't think women prefer bald men 'cause they recognize the higher levels of testosterone, but rather because of aesthetic preferences or plain habit. Actually I don't think biology has as much to do with sexuality as have semantics, discourse, norms, socialization et c. But that's probably because I look at the world from a - somewhat foucauldian - feminist/constructivist angle.

Also, I must say that I find the evolutionism vs. creationism debate amusing. I've only ever gotten in touch with it through Americans, even though I once considered myself christian, and therefore had (still have, actually) friends that, logically, should have held somewhat creationistic views.

Great thread, BTW.
 
Wow. I just read this entire thread. I must say, I'm a little disappointed at the level of "understanding" of evolution. Not to mention the amount of anthropomorphic thinking. As if man were the ultimate product of evolution. Well, that's neither here nor there. Let me try to make a couple of contributions to this thread, maybe a few tidbits that haven't been discussed yet.

First of all, evolution is supposed to occur at many levels. In terms of the fundamental factors and forces in the universe, the history of biology is the story of gradually increasing complexity. Not to say that humans are the most complex life form, just that if you take the billion-year view, the complexity of biological systems tends to increase over time. At the level of energy and entropy and atoms and such, you're looking at certain combinations of molecules being more "successful" than others. Really that's what we're saying, when we're talking about evolution, right?

And, as many have mentioned, it has to be the right "kind" of complexity. The possible number of stable combinations of atoms and molecules is enormous, but only a few of those will turn into successful biological systems. If you accept that natural selection occurs (and as far as I can tell, the evidence for that would be largely irrefutable), then what's "successful" is determined by the environment. There are many cases of leftover features and capabilities, for example one of the most frequently cited is sickle cell anemia. That used to be good for something, biologically speaking. But it no longer is, yet the trait continues. Because, that's the way the genes work.

Then, at the level of today's biological systems, evolution is "mostly" about DNA. It's entirely untrue that "most of the human DNA is unused and serves no purpose". That may have been the theory-du-jour twenty years ago, but it has lost favor since then. In fact, the "marker segments" are now known to serve at least one very useful purpose. But yes, it's certainly true that the types of capabilities that living organisms need, to survive in the earth's environment, will be common based on the common environment.

But again, we're talking at the level of "molecules". Genes turn themselves on and off in a very complex "sequence". The same gene that codes for blue eyes at birth may also code for Parkinson's disease later in life. Gene products can "combine" in different ways (due to either pre-processing or post-processing), and at different times. Simply knowing the complete DNA sequence of a human being is "not enough". One also has to know how the resulting products feed back into the expression mechanism. Living systems are dynamic. All of them.

Now, let's take a step back from the molecular view. ln the same way that there's "entropy" in the universe, which is related to randomness, there's also a set of natural symmetries that create "order" in the universe. Those symmetries are expressed at all levels of the physical world, from the lowliest fundamental particles to the most complex biological systems. If you look at the range of dynamics that can occur in competitive/cooperative systems (i.e. ones in which there are two opposing forces that interact in a structured manner), you'll be able to explain 100% of the odd phenomena associated with evolution, including the chaotic events and the "punctuated equilibrium" (which I've also heard referred to as "saltatory" evolution).

The real question about ID is, where do the symmetries come from? To the casual human observer, there would seem to be "too much order in the universe", and that observation would be incompatible with a philosophy that says the universe evolved from nothing and leads nowhere. People who believe in God (or let's say, an "intelligent designer") should really be trying their best to answer this question. To most of those people, the answer is mainly a matter of faith. In other words, the observation is sufficient in and of itself.

Unfortunately, that's not "science". Any first year psychology student will tell you that perceptions lie, and feelings lie. Or, as Castaneda would say, "whatever you believe to be true, is true". As people have mentioned, the scientific method involves rigorous public scrutiny. It has to do with the repeated verification of the experimental results, by many independent observers, and at many different times. Every scientist knows that today's theory is exactly that: the theory-du-jour. In most cases, it's only a matter of time before someone comes up with an exception, that leads to a whole new theory. Viz Newton's universe relative to Einstein's, and etc.

Rather than saying "prove evolution", though, one should be asking for evidence that it isn't a viable theory. That's how science works. People come up with experiments designed to test (and possibly disprove) the theory-du-jour. For example, in the world of physics there's things like Bell's Paradox, and quantum entanglement and the like. Those are some "real" mysteries. Compared to that, there's nothing really mysterious about evolution. And, as people have mentioned, there's nothing necessarily incompatible between evolution and intelligent design.

I will make the observation, though, that it's extremely arrogant and anthropmorphic to consider that evolution occurs at the "human" level. It may occur on a "social" level, but that would be "within the micro-system consisting of human beings". In other words, concepts like the rule of law probably caught on because they're "operational". My guess would be, that similar concepts would be naturally selected in all social systems of sufficient complexity. We just can't have people running around killing each other all thet time. That would make life painful and unpleasant.

Let me pose this question to y'all: is there anything in the biological universe that "can't" be explained by evolution? Is there any empirical evidence to disprove the theory? If so, is it reproducible by independent experimentation? If you can find something like that, you should probably publish it, 'cause you'll undoubedtly win the Nobel prize. :)
 
Good post nonsqtr. As for your last question, while there have been a number of problems with the theory pointed out that may question it, I do not think it is possible to disprove evolution, nor do I think it is possible to prove it. I think this is largely due to the broad nature and subject matter, as well as the numerous ad hoc modifications that have been made to the theory since Darwin's time. Not that these modifications are necessarily a bad thing - that is what science does, when a problem with the theory arises, the theory is modified to try and explain the anomalie.

Some would say then, that science is simply a series of conjectures and refutations and that successful theories are just the best that we have so far; "the theory-du-jour" as you put it. This process has been repeated many times in the history of science, often resulting in theories being proven false that everyone believed were true. If this is the case then, how scientific or valuable is a theory that is so broad and has had so many ad hoc modifications made to it, that it cannot be disproven? It is hard to imagine any theory ever replacing the theory of evolution no matter what evidence was brought forth.

If you take religion for example, broadly speaking, the common paradigm of all religions would be that there is some intelligent being, or force, beyond our material world that is responsible for the creation of the universe. People might pose questions to this theory, in Christianity a common problem posed is "the problem of evil". Well, the answer comes, "free will" - the ad hoc modification if you like. No matter what, nobody could disprove (or prove) the basic paradigm of religion, and that is why it is not science.

Unlike almost all theories from chemistry and physics, evolution cannot be tested in a lab, no laws or mathematical formulas can be derived from it, nor can we see it happening with our own eyes. I believe that there is definitely some truth to the theory, but I don't think that it is particularly good science, and I am really annoyed by people like Richard Dawkins who, under the guise of science, ludicrously claim evolution to be absolute certainty. His statement "[The Theory of Evolution] made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist", leads me to believe his conviction has more to do with dogma than science. (Sorry, I got a little off track. I'll stop talking about Dawkins...I just really hate that guy :D. Like they say 'the only thing worse than a self-righteous Christian is a self-righteous atheist' :p).
 
While I am a Christian (hopefully not a self righteous one), I would prefer not to try to engage in this argument as I have never yet seen one of these debates result in a chicken or the egg came first winner. I have also not investigated the scientific arguments on either side enough to form anything more than a layman’s opinion. My opinion would be purely based on my beliefs based on life observance and experiences. Because of those observances and experiences, because of the seemingly impossible prayers I have seen answered for others, and because of the totally impossible prayers I have had answered for myself, including the sparing of the life of my once terminally ill young daughter who is now grown and raising a family of her own, I have no doubts whatsoever that there is a God. I do not force my belief on others however. I simply know with absolute certainty that God exists just as some of you know with your own absolute certainty that God does not exist. To each his own.

What I will say is this. It appears that if you evaluate both arguments, you sort of have two choices.

Either:

A long time ago, longer than we can really fathom, all the elements in the universe somehow came together such that in the vast expanse of space, there came to be one planet that we know about that had ALL of the conditions required to support life, temperature, atmosphere, oxygen, gravitational fields, water, etc etc etc. It all just happened into place somehow. Then to top it off, in some mysterious puddle of goo, the spark of life occurred and my great great great great grandpappy came to be as some primordial living organism that over eons of time resulted in me being here playing bass and surfing the net. Out of the millions of creatures that would eventually evolve from this original life form, some became tiny ants, some became giant sperm whales, others became vicious T-Rex dinosaurs. Eventually one, just one and only one out of all those creatures developed complex languages, and the ability to harness the elements of the earth and in a sense rule the earth. This one creature would not only conquer the deepest depths of the ocean, but the far reaches of outer space. Some organisms evolved to the creatures that walk, swim and fly the earth, and since these creatures would die without food, other organisms felt it best if they evolved into grass, grain, apples, grapes and even yucky cauliflower. Some determined that their survival depended on beauty, so they became peacocks, butterflies, and rainbow fish. It’s all just one big string of amazing coincidences that resulted in this wonderful amazing world that we know today.


Or

Somehow, an intelligent being…be it “God”, an alien from Ork, or some “cosmic being” nerd with his chemistry set, put it all in motion by design. The earth is an absolutely perfect petri dish to support life because something/someone meant it to be that way. An apple or a grape provides nutrition and tastes good to most of us because it was designed that way. A male peacock has incredible beauty because there was artistry involved in its “design”. A rose is pleasing to the eye and smell because it was meant to be. A man and woman find pleasure and intimacy in their sexual relations because it is something that was meant to be more than just the reproductive mating of animals for this special creature that can show love and compassion to any and all creatures. A giraffe has a series of valves in its neck and a sponge over it’s brain because it’s “designer” knew that if it didn’t, when it bent over to get a drink, it would blow the top of it’s head off with rushing blood. There is symbiosis between creatures because that partnership was intended to be that way so that both could survive. All of these things were planned and designed by some higher intelligent being. We are here for a reason, not just by accident. We are here because of the ID’ers mentioned earlier.


Whichever one or combination of the two is your belief, if you really stop take a breath and think about it, either one is just as miraculously amazing, or as completely and utterly preposterous. It all depends on your perspective and beliefs, and yes in either case…your FAITH in your choice.

It’s almost as perplexing as that eternal question: “4 or 5 strings”?

Peace.
 
Darwinism is religion.(it used to be mine)Therefore,Religion is already being taught in public school as science.

Ever notice how unproveable theories are called "science",but if they include a personal,or impersonal for that matter,supreme being, they are relegated to the realm of "religion"?

I think there is a prejudice against God.

Supposedly this prejudice exists to protect us against the tyranny of religious fanatics by separation of church and state,but what about the tyranny of godlessness?

Anyone for a little "School/State separation"?
I think I am.

By the way,I know I hi-jacked this thread,I won't say I'm sorry,which would be a lie,but I did think you all would enjoy hearing my perspective on this.
 
JimM said:
Ever notice how unproveable theories are called "science",but if they include a personal,or impersonal for that matter,supreme being, they are relegated to the realm of "religion"?
Probably because the belief in a supreme being is abstract to say the least. Believing that simple molecules evolved into people is very tangible compared to the concept of a "God" creating the Universe. While both have an awful amount of questions that remain unanswered, it is much easier to grasp from a scientific perspective that evolution is the answer. Moreover, science is beginning to find pieces in the evolution puzzle to support Darwin.


JimM said:
I think there is a prejudice against God.
Once again, placing an assumption that there is a "God" as you believe it to be. There are so many religions with just as much justification for their beliefs as Christianity that putting one of them above the others as an explanation of man is very ethnocentric. Thus, while other competing explanations from a theological perspective all hold weight, and while evolution basically stands alone in science, to compare the two is really pointless, AFAIC.

Leigh
 
john turner said:
this is not exactly true. evidence of natural selection was collected with regards to the peppered moth in england.

From what I understand the original scientist who did that study actually staged the moth photos on the trees and admitted it later. The trees were not habitats of the moths and the moths did not 'rest' on those trees naturally.

In regards to Michael Behe, although he is now associated with a religious group, he was formerly an agnostic until his studies led him in a direction of religion because of some of the compelling evidence that makes evolution more difficult to argue than most people are led to believe.

Irreducible Complexity is something that raises questions in my own search for some form of truth. This basically states that evolution could not have leaps in process (or this would technically be a miracle) and there are organisms and creatures that these leaps would have had to happen to in order for the evolutionary process to be 'working' as it should according to the principles in evolutionary thought. I recall that one organism has a structure that's somewhat like an outboard motor. Behe reasons that the structure, which is composed of about forty parts, could not 'grow' each part over time and still survive or have an effective enough mode of movement in order to live on.

The Cambrian Era is another interesting fact. A huge explosion of different species happens at one point in history, which is almost inconcievable in evolutionary thought. I believe that there is 'micro-evolution' as Darwin called it or changes within a species, but I do not believe in 'macro-evolution' or a change from one species to another. It is difficult to see how a pig has more similar organs to humans than do our 'supposed relatives' in the animal kingdom.

I also wonder if evolution is true, then would that require to creatures of the same species to simultaneously evolve into the same species in the next stage in order to continue that species? And, as complicated as humans, and other animals are, how does each stage happen? Watching an eye (with the iris, pupil, cornea, optic nerve, and other structures) evolve would be a site to see. When the first part starts evolving, how long until the species realizes it isn't helping? And then after so many generations and years it finally has a purpose because it has all the parts it now needs to function.

I'm not saying that creationism is a walk in the park to explain either, and it definitely raises it's own questions, but just had these thoughts as I'm posting. I always think that it's important for people to find answers to questions for themselves. I'm probably not going to convince anyone of anyone via this post. You have to convince yourself.
 
JimM said:
Darwinism is religion.(it used to be mine)Therefore,Religion is already being taught in public school as science.

Ever notice how unproveable theories are called "science",but if they include a personal,or impersonal for that matter,supreme being, they are relegated to the realm of "religion"?

This is a strawman argument.

Evolutionary theory is no more of a religion than gravity or any number of other theories that we can't prove beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Some people have drawn conlcusions from the research that might approach 'religious' or dogmatic, but the work itself is scientific because it makes no mention of God or anything metaphysical. Evolutionary theory makes no claim that God doesn't exist. People do that. The scientists who have made that claim are extremely irresponsible. On the same side of the coin, any scientists who make the opposite claim are equally irresponsible. Science, by definition, should exclude any talk of anything outside the physical universe.

Case in point: I went to a Christian school. I was taught about evolutionary theory. I certainly wasn't taught that it meant God didn't exist or that it should replace religion.
 
In modern science law is not believed to be absolutely proven and absolutely true, but rather it is seen as a theory which has shown itself to be true a number of times and as of curent times has not been shown to be wrong.

Its bassically a tested theory which so far hasnt been shown to be wrong.

It is impossible to prove something as absolutely true because no matter how many times you observe event A to result in outcome B, there is still the chance that one day even A might result in outcome C.

The difference between science and religion is that religion uses faith and observations to substantiate a belief while science requires observations to substantiate knowledge and understanding.

Neither is mutually exclusive and both can actually help each other.

Why do I believe in a greater power? Because of the beauty of natural things and the complexity of natural laws. The fact that there is gravity, matter, antimater, evolution, life, etc... all shows me that something had to have put it there. Something had to have made this system by which it all works. It all depends on how you look at it.
 
Lloyd Christmas said:
If this is the case then, how scientific or valuable is a theory that is so broad and has had so many ad hoc modifications made to it, that it cannot be disproven? It is hard to imagine any theory ever replacing the theory of evolution no matter what evidence was brought forth.

Good point. In the same way that Newton's physics is still valid, and still useful. Theories are (usually) based on "models", which in turn are based on "fundamental assumptions". Some of them even have "scope". They're "good" models because they're "operational", they describe a large part of what we have to deal with in our daily lives.

Lloyd Christmas said:
I believe that there is definitely some truth to the theory, but I don't think that it is particularly good science, and I am really annoyed by people like Richard Dawkins who, under the guise of science, ludicrously claim evolution to be absolute certainty.

Yes, I agree fully with the gist of what you're saying. "Most" models have some useful elements to them. The problem arises when people get "religion" about one model or the other, and then ludicrously claim that all other models are useless because theirs is "the one". Scientists are just as guilty of this as religious fundamentalists, maybe even more so in many cases.

JimM said:
Darwinism is religion.(it used to be mine)Therefore,Religion is already being taught in public school as science.

Ever notice how unproveable theories are called "science",but if they include a personal,or impersonal for that matter,supreme being, they are relegated to the realm of "religion"?

Well, you may have missed the point. The central concept in science is the "reproducible" result. If the results aren't reproducible, then scientists tend to take a dim view of the model. And for good reason. I disagree that evolution can't be tested in the lab, in fact I can rattle off a list of dozens of such experiments right off the top of my head, where short-cyle organisms have been specifically mutated and selected by scientists in the lab. Fruit flies are the prime example, there is a huge catalog of thousands of strains of fruit flies with specific properties, and all members of each strain are genetically identical. The same would be true for lab rats. The same would be true for many strains of fruits and vegetables. And, for that matter, isn't that the way they breed dogs?

The difference (in my view) between science and religion is that religion accepts the validity of inconsistent results, whereas science does not. There are plenty of things in the middle, like for instance both science and religion may get involved in the study of "parapsychology". But science absolutely demands reproducible results, because the models are considered invalid if they can't predict the outcomes of the experiments. Religion gets around that by making use of concept like "God's will" (boy, there's an anthropomorphic concept, if ever I heard one), to explain the variation in the observed results.

Well, personally, I'm completely okay with people having "faith" in things they can't necessarily comprehend. Scientists have faith that there is some order in the universe. Religious believers have faith that God exists. I don't see those two systems of thought as being necessarily incompatible. I do feel, however, that many of the religious types would get a lot better public acceptance, by applying scientific methods to the investigation of the nature of God. I mean, isn't that exactly what the scientists are doing when they study the Universe?