I rage when people say they don't "believe" in evolution

[gatovolador]

The widespread distrust of science in some parts of the US just baffles me.

there's a massive gap between a relatively small group of people who are pro-science and the rest, which is a big problem. Worse, the pro-science people are often only those who have the skills to benefit from science and new tech and the new opportunities it creates, and the rest of the people don't really have the skills to work in.

[Sublime82]

i dont believe in the evolution theory at all

dealwithit.jpeg

Jakes on you

[tydragonfly]

http://www.webwizardry.net/~ron/locke.html

Read this and then argue for evolution.

[White_Goodman]

not reading thread, but evolution is far from 100% guaranteed, there are still holes in the theory

[gatovolador]

not reading thread, but evolution is far from 100% guaranteed, there are still holes in the theory

what are the holes? a theory is supposed to explain evidence and provide predictive ability.

what predictions does it make that are wrong? what evidence does it not explain satisfactorily?



MOST IMPORTANTLY how is more logical to assume there is an all powerful being that created everything and that's why there's speciation? What evidence is there for this? What predictive ability is there?

[Dutchee]

what are the holes? a theory is supposed to explain evidence and provide predictive ability.

what predictions does it make that are wrong? what evidence does it not explain satisfactorily?

Even Dawkins admits evolution still has holes in it, and that they're working on it.

Ffwd to 1:50 of video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA66lP2GkiE

[Sublime82]

http://www.webwizardry.net/~ron/locke.html

Read this and then argue for evolution.

Okay... Where shall I start. First off, I noticed that the first section of argument is against punctuated equilibrium. PE is a controversial theory which never gained much popularity and has already mostly fallen out of favour.

Second, it brings up the oft-toted by creationists, "lack of transitional fossils" argument. This is, excuse the language, nothing more than a heaping pile of horse manure.

Q: The fossil record does not contain any transitional forms representing the origin of major new forms of life.


A: This is a very common claim and is flatly false, for there are many such intermediates (see chapter 4 in futuyma) Creationists sometimes use rhetorical subterfuge in presenting this argument, such as defining Archaeopteryx as a bird because of its feathers and then claiming that there are no known intermediates between reptiles and birds. (futuyma, 2009)

Additionally, there is a well represented lineage of fossils in the homo genus leading into humans, for example.

Then it criticizes the use of computers in generating clades. This is a relatively imprecise science by its very nature and is constantly being rearranged and reorganized. Most computer programs simply organize it according to occam's razor, which is the most logical route.

Afterwards, it brings up the evolution of wings. This problem is addressed in great detail here:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebr...ht/evolve.html

The rest isn't really in my area of expertise, perhaps someone else could take a stab at it.




In conclusion, that article does nothing to disprove the theory of evolution. It merely points out holes, both real and perceived (most of the criticisms in this article fall squarely in the latter). This is most commonly known as the God of The Gaps argument, and is a logical fallacy.

Hope that was a good enough refutation.


If you enjoyed this post, please rep me, it took a fair amount of effort for the misc. I rep back.

[caughtinabadone]

arent wings a product of exaption

[Sublime82]

arent wings a product of exaption

Possibly... that is the hypothesis that seems most likely to me.

[johnlynch01]

ITS JUST ATHEORY

evolution isnt proven fact

besides

howw can something come from nothing?

u cant explain that with evolution dumbass

gravity is just a theory.

[Sublime82]

Dammit people stop calling gravity a theory. It's a law. The law of gravity.

This is Newton's law of gravity ---> F=GMm/d^2

The Theory of Gravity explains how we believe this works. They are two separate entities. This is identical to the relationship between evolution and the Theory of Evolution.

[Ryceryder85]

religion = man made, faith and make up an idea or theory

science = facts, evidence to come up with idea or theory

[Cell-Tech Daddy]

[gatovolador]

religion = man made, faith and make up an idea or theory

science = facts, evidence to come up with idea or theory

and to add to the science part, if it doesn't work (ie fails to predict something or new evidence is found that contradicts) then you revise or junk it.

[DyingStar]

I don't even know where to begin when people try to argue with me about atheism. Brb not only do i believe evolution is more true than religion i also believe religion was created in the past for social control/ personal gain throughout human history. ie. protestant christians/ hindu

[Streaks]

Read this and then argue for evolution.

this.

[RichmondRichman]

Evolution has been a proven observed fact for years. Where is the argument? We have watched evolution in microoganisms. Religion =deny logic

[Birdy69]

negging on recharge

[ne12o]

what are the holes? a theory is supposed to explain evidence and provide predictive ability.

what predictions does it make that are wrong? what evidence does it not explain satisfactorily?



MOST IMPORTANTLY how is more logical to assume there is an all powerful being that created everything and that's why there's speciation? What evidence is there for this? What predictive ability is there?

virtually every sicentific theory has "holes" in it because it can't explain everything, nor is there enough evidence to explain everything. Further, the scientific community is open to changing its theories as new evidence is found. the current theory is vastly different from the one proposed by darwin.

u mad?

[ne12o]

well in that case you'd just be an idiot.

lol?
brb some dedicating their life to economics with 0 interest in religion or biology is an idiot.

[FBIagentQ]

The people you're talking about are called republicans OP. The same people who think giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires is smart.

[djdizzydave]

The theory of evolution has numerous problems, some of which are absolutely enormous and for which no adequate solution has even been proposed. The biggest problem comes right at the beginning with the supposedly spontaneous generation of life from non-life. Neo-Darwinian scientists admit this, recognizing that proposed evolutionary scenarios do not model reasonable conditions on earth, and could not have produced anything like the complex life we see all around us--even single-celled life.

The second-biggest problem involves the development of complex invertebrates, animals without a backbone, from single-celled life. How did this transition occur? A robust fossil record of one-celled life has now been found, and of course a truly abundant record of marine invertebrates can be discovered everywhere, from clams to sponges to jellyfish to starfish, etc. The "explosion" of life in the Cambrian system of strata continues to baffle evolutionists, for there is no record showing a transition from tiny single-celled life to complex invertebrates. There are innumerable fossils of invertebrate ocean bottom life, even those with no hard outer shell, but no ancestors of these invertebrates have been identified.

A third huge problem lies in the next step required by evolution. Fish, thought to be the first vertebrates, must have evolved from invertebrates, but again there is no record of this transition. "How this earliest chordate stock |i.e., early vertebrates| evolved, what stages of development it went through to eventually give rise to truly fishlike creatures, we do not know."1 Over the years nearly every invertebrate has been proposed as the ancestor, but each suggestion has only been in vogue for a time. As Dr. Duane Gish--former Senior Vice President at ICR and a well-known creation scientist--likes to say, if evolution can't derive either invertebrates from single-celled life, or vertebrate fish from invertebrates, it is "dead in the water."

One proposition receiving attention these days is that echinoderms were the creature that evolved into fish. Now, echinoderms usually don't look anything like fish. Their ranks include sea squirts, tunicates, and starfish. These do have a pseudo-spine with a central supportive notochord and a tubular nerve chord, features that are somewhat present in vertebrates, especially in the embryonic stage. It seems that Ernst Haeckel's theory of embryonic recapitulation is more extensive than once thought.2

It has been discovered that during embryonic development, certain features in the gut of the starfish bear similarity to a feature in vertebrate embryos. Further maturity yields a form and function far different from the vertebrate condition, yet this early formative pathway seemingly provides the hoped-for clue evolutionists need. Is this proof that a starfish evolved into a fish that evolved into a human?

It seems to me that they are grasping at straws. Without the assumption of evolution, without the neo-Darwinian scientist's "certain knowledge" that vertebrates evolved from invertebrates, this flimsy link would not merit such attention.

[sinfiery]

http://www.webwizardry.net/~ron/locke.html

Read this and then argue for evolution.

The entire article questions the semantics of evolution and uses the summation of these points to dispute evolution.

The problem with this theory, which is too complex to go into in detail here, is that while it explains away the non-existence of small gradations, it still requires there to be large ones (the individual spurts) and even these aren't in the record

There are records showing species changing from 1 to another. You can always claim there should be another missing link in between until the end of days but at a certain point enough proof is there to make a decision without expecting all the proof.

Where that point lies is what he argues here, and states we haven't reached it yet. Most scientist say we have.
Once again, semantics.

data say "no evolution" just as loudly as they say "evolution"; it's just the pattern-craving human mind that gives prominence to the former way of viewing it. This is known as phenetic analysis.

A computer is no different then a human mind...
We have no set definition for what is described as evolution and what is not.

So if we put in 1 definition on a computer and see a correlation, we can put another and not see a correlation.
It's human perception in the computer program.
Computers can't inherently tell the difference between evolution and no evolution, that's idiotic.


Also, they claim validity in this link by mentioning some well respected scientist have refused to agree with evolution.

Well, far more have agreed with it with the same, and more reputation.
Far, far, far more.

[KTownGT]

This is Newton's law of gravity ---> F=GMm/d^2

The Theory of Gravity explains how we believe this works. They are two separate entities. This is identical to the relationship between evolution and the Theory of Evolution.

Evolution itself is not a law as far as I've come to learn, yet?

Doesn't a scientific law need a mathematical, err, formula for it to be tested precisely?

[Tapciv]

Evolution is a fact, just the details are disputed and argued, and new information is being revealed everyday. It's one of the most massive questions in science, spanning billions of years and attempting to answer the question of where we came from. Uneducated religious buffoons pretend not to 'believe' in it because they never learned a thing about it, and just repeat what their crazy churchie friends tell them. Idiots, don't deserve my time.


edit: Spot sold to Richard Dawkins, atheism, and project reason.

Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris also bought into this slot.

Available at fine bookstores everywhere.

I can be down with Dawkins, but I read some Sam Harris books and must say, I was not impressed. I am an atheist, who believes you have to be retarded to deny that evolution occurred and continues to occur only on the basis of religion. I think it is funny, because they work so hard to "disprove evolution" which only leads to more people refuting the claims and educating people on evolution and leading to more awareness of how wrong the fundamentalist really are.

But back to Sam Harris, I thought he pointed out some good stats in some of his books and made some good points but he had this "Us vs Them" mentality and this elitist attitude about him. I almost felt like I was trying to be persuaded to join an atheist gang to wipe out anyone who believes in any religion. I get it, religion stifles society, holds us back, etc, etc.... but I am not going to make the jump to saying someone must be less intelligent than someone else, simply because they believe in a god. I felt while reading the Sam Harris book, that being an atheist makes me smarter than anyone who believes in religion.... which simply is not the case, there are lots of very smart people that believe in religions (various motives).

[Maiar]

lol @ retards still trying to argue against evolution. negging like it was my job

[KTownGT]

The theory of evolution has numerous problems, some of which are absolutely enormous and for which no adequate solution has even been proposed. The biggest problem comes right at the beginning with the supposedly spontaneous generation of life from non-life. Neo-Darwinian scientists admit this, recognizing that proposed evolutionary scenarios do not model reasonable conditions on earth, and could not have produced anything like the complex life we see all around us--even single-celled life.

The second-biggest problem involves the development of complex invertebrates, animals without a backbone, from single-celled life. How did this transition occur? A robust fossil record of one-celled life has now been found, and of course a truly abundant record of marine invertebrates can be discovered everywhere, from clams to sponges to jellyfish to starfish, etc. The "explosion" of life in the Cambrian system of strata continues to baffle evolutionists, for there is no record showing a transition from tiny single-celled life to complex invertebrates. There are innumerable fossils of invertebrate ocean bottom life, even those with no hard outer shell, but no ancestors of these invertebrates have been identified.

A third huge problem lies in the next step required by evolution. Fish, thought to be the first vertebrates, must have evolved from invertebrates, but again there is no record of this transition. "How this earliest chordate stock |i.e., early vertebrates| evolved, what stages of development it went through to eventually give rise to truly fishlike creatures, we do not know."1 Over the years nearly every invertebrate has been proposed as the ancestor, but each suggestion has only been in vogue for a time. As Dr. Duane Gish--former Senior Vice President at ICR and a well-known creation scientist--likes to say, if evolution can't derive either invertebrates from single-celled life, or vertebrate fish from invertebrates, it is "dead in the water."

One proposition receiving attention these days is that echinoderms were the creature that evolved into fish. Now, echinoderms usually don't look anything like fish. Their ranks include sea squirts, tunicates, and starfish. These do have a pseudo-spine with a central supportive notochord and a tubular nerve chord, features that are somewhat present in vertebrates, especially in the embryonic stage. It seems that Ernst Haeckel's theory of embryonic recapitulation is more extensive than once thought.2

It has been discovered that during embryonic development, certain features in the gut of the starfish bear similarity to a feature in vertebrate embryos. Further maturity yields a form and function far different from the vertebrate condition, yet this early formative pathway seemingly provides the hoped-for clue evolutionists need. Is this proof that a starfish evolved into a fish that evolved into a human?

It seems to me that they are grasping at straws. Without the assumption of evolution, without the neo-Darwinian scientist's "certain knowledge" that vertebrates evolved from invertebrates, this flimsy link would not merit such attention.

Nice copypasta, *******.

And, if you had taken any upper level biology classes(Hell, I learned about most of those, "problems" in Gen Bio I and II.)

[gregr507]

Nice copypasta, *******.

And, if you had taken any upper level biology classes(Hell, I learned about most of those, "problems" in Gen Bio I and II.)

Intelligent design proponents LOVE to copy pasta. It's their only option since they don't actually understand any biology.

[LeonardShelby]

how does your foot taste?

maybe this is where we evolved from as he walks upright too

[SpiderBro]

The theory of evolution has numerous problems, some of which are absolutely enormous and for which no adequate solution has even been proposed. The biggest problem comes right at the beginning with the supposedly spontaneous generation of life from non-life. Neo-Darwinian scientists admit this, recognizing that proposed evolutionary scenarios do not model reasonable conditions on earth, and could not have produced anything like the complex life we see all around us--even single-celled life.

Not that you understand any of this, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%...rey_experiment
pls go