Hopefully we can have discussions like these here too.

Do you believe that the scientific theory of evolution is correct? (This one: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/)

Yes, No or I don't know/undecided.

So, at this point, we've establish the following:

Evolution may or may not be the sole cause of human development.

The defenses to this so far are :

1) Lots of scientists think it absolutely must work this way, therefore it can work no other.

2) We've see nothing that suggests otherwise, so therefore nothing else can exist (evolution-believer's version of an argument from ignorance).

If someone responds with something of any merit I'll respond, but we're spinning wheels at this point due to team evolution being incapable of admitting they are not omniscient.

Actually when it comes to discussions like these one can in my opinion work three different points.

1. Direct evidence. This requires deep understanding of the subject and the ability to read and understand science papers and reports correctly.

2. My scientists are better than your scientists. Pointing out flaws in the other ones scientists and their failed reasoning and/or their hidden agendas.

3. A whole different philosophy/background. Like introducing god into a scientific discussion. Then it becomes more about the scientific method and its faults vs some different view on the world.

Problem I see here is that you refuse to do 1. because you (much like me) don't know enough to refute 1000+ advanced science papers. The second one you say is a authority argument and that leaves the third one. But the problem is you seem to refuse to apply it on anything else than evolution.

This all shows how hard it is to discuss a subject like this because it can only be true or false. A discussion about for example "Are the US doing good in Iraq" can be filled with opinions like "Because of X I think they suck" or "Nah, if you look at Y I think it will turn out alright".

So what should I say. What is it you don't trust about it? The evidence? The scientists? The scientific method/our view at world?

>Actually when it comes to discussions like these one can in
>my opinion work three different points.
>
>1. Direct evidence. This requires deep understanding of the
>subject and the ability to read and understand science papers
>and reports correctly.

See below. Burden of proof isn't on my shoulders.

>2. My scientists are better than your scientists. Pointing out
>flaws in the other ones scientists and their failed reasoning
>and/or their hidden agendas.

I don't understand what you're implying with this. Science will concede that Newton's laws are approximations, but you can't concede that evolution is as well?

>3. A whole different philosophy/background. Like introducing
>god into a scientific discussion. Then it becomes more about
>the scientific method and its faults vs some different view on
>the world.

The problem is more that some people won't admit that the scientific method contains faults. It is not the equivalent of a mathematical proof.

>Problem I see here is that you refuse to do 1. because you
> much like me) don't know enough to refute 1000+ advanced
>science papers. The second one you say is a authority argument
>and that leaves the third one. But the problem is you seem to
>refuse to apply it on anything else than evolution.

Why do I have to do your homework? I say I'm not certain, you say you are. That indicates the burden of proof is on your shoulders. Saying "I don't know" doesn't require a proof. Saying "I do know" does.

>This all shows how hard it is to discuss a subject like this
>because it can only be true or false. A discussion about for
>example "Are the US doing good in Iraq" can be filled with
>opinions like "Because of X I think they suck" or "Nah, if you
>look at Y I think it will turn out alright".
>
>So what should I say. What is it you don't trust about it? The
>evidence? The scientists? The scientific method/our view at
>world?

I view the theory of evolution as a partial explanation to one factor of the very broad question of "Why and how are we here?" Like I said in my first post - its a piece of a far larger puzzle, one riddled with complexities and uncertainties. As such, claiming there's one golden answer to the whole problem to me seems unintuitive and improbable.

We're adding to the theory of evolution regularly and still looking for evidence to prove any number of models for the origin of life - I'd say at this point its fair to say the jury isn't in yet on the matter.

We've reached a point where if this were an unfamiliar poster making the same arguments, I'd assume you were intentionally trolling.

Heh. How is it a troll? What's so hard about saying the theory of evolution is not an absolute in terms of philosophy?

If anything, to me, its like saying "water is wet", as in its a "duh" statement.

That's why I don't get why people can't concede as much. Its almost like the more obvious of a statement you make, the more likely someone is to argue with you about it.

Nothing is absolute by the terms of proof with which you seem to think are necessary. Except of course that your terms only apply to evolutionary theory.

No one has argued that evolution is 100% perfect and we know exactly how we got from the first life form to every life form on the planet now except in the general sense. Is there room for a creator, or extraterrestrial influence or whatever in there? Sure, but it isn't a useful line of questioning.

If, instead you research how stuff evolves and happen upon a case where something evolved in a way that is completely impossible given the understanding of evolution, then you have to either modify your understanding and see if it still works, or you've come across something truly unexplainable by nature. Then you've proven God (or something like it) exists!

Unfortunately all evidence points to the Universe being internally self-consistent. That isn't to say that means there is no God. It's just saying that when stuff happens, it's not magic, it's because the laws of nature make/allow it to happen.

You aren't trying to argue some common sense point that the rest of us are being bullheaded about. You're trying to hold a rigorously tested theory to a ridiculous standard of proof that nothing can satisfy and simultaneously claiming other things do satisfy it.

If you were instead saying that the Pythagorean theorem wasn't complete because every possible right triangle hadn't been tested to see if a^2 + b^2 = c^2, and we'd be saying, look here there is mathematical proofs, and you'd say, but you don't know that it's always been true because you haven't been alive forever and observed every single right triangle ever in existence. Seriously. Just stop.

You aren't trying to argue some common sense point that the rest of us are being bullheaded about. You're trying to hold a rigorously tested theory to a ridiculous standard of proof that nothing can satisfy and simultaneously claiming other things do satisfy it.

Exactly. Arguing about whether or not Darwin's theory of evolution is correct is like arguing about whether or not the moon is made of green cheese. I mean, there's some chance that the astronauts lied, all our measurements are both incorrect and coinciding, our understanding of the solar system's origins is fatally flawed, etc. But right now, every test ever proposed has coincided with the theory's predictions, so we say we "know" the moon is not made of green cheese.

Now, tomorrow someone might some out with astounding new evidence supporting their Theory of Lunar Dairy Products. New tests would have to be done, and old theories would at that point lose validity, and require modification. It would become a worthy topic of discussion, because the old theories' predictive power would have been lowered or eliminated.

But until that day comes, who argues about whether the moon is made of green cheese?

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Ok, so in 1972 the moon was made out of green cheese?

More importantly, here is what boggles me :

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=43&topic_id=1287&mesg_id=1387&page=

There you state that newtonian law is incorrect. You concede that theories cannot be proven and that they can and are invalidated over time, and that its not a terribly rare thing.

How can you concede that and still say that you are certain of evolution? That would seem to be a total contradiction to me. "Certain with a caveat", to me, means uncertain. Its not an argument about whether or not the moon is made of green cheese, its an argument about whether or not we know what the moon is made out and if we don't, how can we claim to be certain of it?

My standpoint is that team evolution bashes team "I'm not sure", whereas, in my opinion, "I'm not sure" is only real, time proven answer.

it is more like this.

Evolution = The speed of dropping a one pound stone from X height on Y place on earth without wind resistance. It is something that is fairly basic and the odds that we got it wrong is extremely small.

The theory of evolution that incompasses exactly every way it can happen, details on the molecular level and every development tree in history might change bits and pieces. But the large parts have stayed the same for a long time.

Compare this to the theory of gravitation. Sure we know the rock is falling but we know much much less why it is falling than we know about evolution. But the idea that we got the whole idea about that a rock is actually falling when you drop it wrong is pretty damn minimal, even if we don't know everything about gravitation.

Why exactly do you feel the need to convince me? "Evolution may change bits and pieces","odds that we got it wrong are fairly small", right, I guess I should just take that on faith or what?

Bottom line - its our best understanding at the moment, until someone proves otherwise. Now if you'll excuse me I'm done playing devil's advocate, none of this is of any real importance to me one way or the other.

The reason is the mass ignorance of the subject due to the massive anti-science propaganda from mainly religious groups. That is why I find it sad when people try to attack evolution based on evidence when they have not even attempted to research the subject. If someone says "God created it all" then it is pointless to argue because then evidence says nothing.

You seem to have the belief that someone might some day find out that evolution is not the cause of speciation, this is as likely as finding out that the sun revolves around the earth. Sure it is possible but it is highly unlikely. However you seem to take my words that scientists might correct the absolute path in how the earth revolves around the sun as an admission that the whole theory is false.

What would convince you that evolution and common ancestry is as certain as the existance of George Washington? (or probably even more certain)

Being "not sure" about Darwin's Theory of Evolution == Being "not sure" about the Green Cheese Lunar Theory == Being "not sure" about a flat earth == Being "not sure" about the moon landing's authenticity.

Nearly everything in your daily life that you accept as "fact" is as uncertain or more uncertain than the premises of Darwinian evolution. The evidence is staggering, regardless of whether or not you've learned about it.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

You can never prove God exists, you can never prove God does not exist. The essence of any complex system has similar properties - you can only prove what you can reproduce and you can only disprove that which can be disproven via reproduction. The higher the number of variables, the lower the predictability of the system. Its a pretty fundamental and obvious concept.

So if you don't like that simple glaring fact, don't get pissed off when people respond "I'm not sure". Absolute certainty in the terms you're talking about is a leap of faith, whether you think it is or not.

>You can never prove God exists, you can never prove God does
>not exist. The essence of any complex system has similar
>properties - you can only prove what you can reproduce and you
>can only disprove that which can be disproven via
>reproduction. The higher the number of variables, the lower
>the predictability of the system. Its a pretty fundamental and
>obvious concept.

God is not a scientific subject much the same as the notion of flying unicorns on the moon. Anyway, with your standard of proof it is not ever possible to prove anything. All experiments are tainted with instruments and an observer.

>So if you don't like that simple glaring fact, don't get
>pissed off when people respond "I'm not sure". Absolute
>certainty in the terms you're talking about is a leap of
>faith, whether you think it is or not.

Well, that includes all science and all your knowledge.

>Heh. How is it a troll? What's so hard about saying the
>theory of evolution is not an absolute in terms of philosophy?

Basically, because nothing in the realm of human knowledge, not anything, lives up to the standards of certainty that you seem to be insisting upon to use phrases of the form 'we know X.'

I mean, if you and I were in a meeting or something and every time you said something I chimed in and was like... "AHA! But you don't really KNOW that for certain, do you?!" it'd be super obnoxious, right? At this point we're about in that realm.

That's not true at all actually.

These sort of dialogs happen all the time:

Consider the following - "I know Google stocks will be over $700 by the end of next year." The natural and most common response is probably, "You can't know that for sure." Consider the following - "I know that all dinosaurs had feathers." The natural response is, "That isn't necessarily true." That's why typically these things are phrased, "I predict Google stocks will be over $700" or "I believe all dinosaurs may have had feathers".

The uncertainty is implied, claiming certainty is still false. There are reasons why the terms, "probably", "most likely", "appears to be", and "I think" or "I believe" are so common. These are the phrases you use when you talk about something that is not certain, that's why epistemology exists - not as some Matrix conjecture, its the basis for the fundamental tenets of knowledge - namely that you need to understand what you know and what you do not know.

If you're going to question why I'm not certain about something, you should know whether or not what you assume I should be certain about has any certainty to it.

Put it this way:

Assuming I let you look it up first, and then asked you what the Google stock price was, not at the end of next year, but yesterday, would you still attach all the "but we can't really know" caveats to it? I'm assuming no. (If the answer is yes, then I give up.)

Basically, your disconnect is that you think Team Science in this thread is making stock-price-next-year level assertions, and they think they're making stock-price-yesterday level assertions.

Because yesterday and 200,000 years ago are basically like the same thing. Polling the newspapers from yesterday - pretty much just like polling fossil records that have been in the soil for a quarter million years.

Whatever, to each his own. You guys do your thing, I'll do mine. Difference being, I don't need to go through life with some canned, simplified explanation of everything.

If you don't want to spend the time doing enough of the research and the reading to have an informed opinion on the subject, that's fine. Not everyone has the time or interest to be an expert on anything.

But, I'm sorry, it's tres silly to think that ignorance in some way makes you superior.

Here's where I call bs. When was the last time you ran a study on fossil records?

If the answer is never, then you haven't done any research either. The difference being that you take what's written and common concensus as gospel, whereas I'm not simply not willing to take anything as gospel (even my own presumptions and findings, I always account for some degree of human error).

Superior? Hardly, but at least I'm honest.

I give. There's a brick wall here if I want to keep beating my head uselessly against one.

Next topic!

And the entire scientific community seems to believe that as well, regardless of several attempts to discrete it, which each failed miserably, it probably is true. Or at least as truthful as our current knowledge and understanding of the matter allows.

No one ever said it's without flaws or a 'the one-answer to all questions' theory.

"What is mind, don't matter. What is matter, nevermind!" - Homer J. Simpson.

Because yesterday and 200,000 years ago are basically like the same thing. Polling the newspapers from yesterday - pretty much just like polling fossil records that have been in the soil for a quarter million years.

I'm sorry, but you're profoundly ignorant of the methods, experiments, and data underlying modern evolutionary theory if you think all of the evidence is from 200,000 year old fossils. The strength of the theory comes precisely from how robust it has proven through an astounding variety of orthogonal testing methods performs by independent sources.

Scientific theories only have validity if they can be tested. If they can be tested, they have predictive power. For over a century, Darwinian theory has been making predictions which have been borne out by subsequent testing, sometimes decades later.

Whatever, to each his own. You guys do your thing, I'll do mine. Difference being, I don't need to go through life with some canned, simplified explanation of everything.

I wouldn't call my grasp of evolutionary theory "canned" or "simplified". I'm not an expert by a long shot, but you're way off.

Everyone goes through life ignorant of many subjects, but it isn't something to be proud of. I don't know a lot about music theory, but I don't go around telling composers that all they have is a "canned, simplified" explanation of it, and that I'm superior because (in my ignorance) I can "think for myself" about how to write a symphony.

You seem to think that being educated with regard to a specific topic reduces the ability to make informed decisions about that topic. Quite the opposite.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

How long ago is it estimated that humans originated (hint: 200,000 years)? Thump your chest a little more though about my ignorance, maybe that's a solid replacement for debating my point.

Just stop embarrassing yourself. You're not even asking intelligent questions about the theory. (Hint: Biologists are not standing around their labs saying "Of course! We can only extract so much information from human fossils! Darwin was wrong!" Yes, everything you've said was brought up in 1860. No, it wasn't correct then either.)

Have fun finding people who will eternally beat their head against this brick wall. Feel free to proclaim victory if it makes you feel better about your ignorance.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Have fun being a zealot, just bear in mind you're no better than your typical Bible thumper. It always boils down to namecalling when you don't have a point doesn't it?

What's embarassing about honesty? Maybe I should pretend I've personally reviewed these studies myself and have absolute faith in them? I'm not quite as dishonest as you are in that regard.

Well, even that is sort of a general agreement.

Yes, water is a liquid and therefore wet.

But would you say that liquid iron is wet? It would be boiling hot and kill/harm you to touch it, but strictly speaking, it would have to be wet.

Would you call liquid oxygen wet?


My point is, with ultra complex things, after a while, you need to go beyond 'proof' and agree that it probably is truth, and come up with a general agreement.

As any general agreement, it can be altered or disproven, but as long as it's not, in a scientific way, it's truth (for as closely as we can approach it).

Maybe a dumb way of putting it, but I hope you see what I mean.

"What is mind, don't matter. What is matter, nevermind!" - Homer J. Simpson.

>Why do I have to do your homework? I say I'm not certain, you say you >are. That indicates the burden of proof is on your shoulders. Saying "I >don't know" doesn't require a proof. Saying "I do know" does.'

Well, it is you who are calling the scientific community ignorant. A quote for you:

"A few words need to be said about the "theory of evolution," which most people take to mean the proposition that organisms have evolved from common ancestors. In everyday speech, "theory" often means a hypothesis or even a mere speculation. But in science, "theory" means "a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed." as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it. The theory of evolution is a body of interconnected statements about natural selection and the other processes that are thought to cause evolution, just as the atomic theory of chemistry and the Newtonian theory of mechanics are bodies of statements that describe causes of chemical and physical phenomena. In contrast, the statement that organisms have descended with modifications from common ancestors--the historical reality of evolution--is not a theory. It is a fact, as fully as the fact of the earth's revolution about the sun. Like the heliocentric solar system, evolution began as a hypothesis, and achieved "facthood" as the evidence in its favor became so strong that no knowledgeable and unbiased person could deny its reality. No biologist today would think of submitting a paper entitled "New evidence for evolution;" it simply has not been an issue for a century."

There are tons of quotes like this, there is simply no doubt about it in the scientific community.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html


>I view the theory of evolution as a partial explanation to one factor >of the very broad question of "Why and how are we here?" Like I said >in my first post - its a piece of a far larger puzzle, one riddled >with complexities and uncertainties. As such, claiming there's one >golden answer to the whole problem to me seems unintuitive and >improbable.

The theory of evolution is not trying to explain that. It simply states that we have a common ancestor and that we have evolved into different species.


>We're adding to the theory of evolution regularly and still looking >for evidence to prove any number of models for the origin of life - >I'd say at this point its fair to say the jury isn't in yet on the >matter.

Yes, the inner mechanics of evolution can change and is changing as people discover more about it. However the overall framework or the fact that evolution happens is never questioned. And origin of life is still not the same subject as evolution...

The irony is that you find it offensive.

"proposition that organisms have evolved from common ancestors"

No one here is debating that. There's a larger philosophical question - "How/Why we're here?" That's the actual thing people argue about. "Man came from apes" is something people argue about, not whether or not its plausible.

Long story short, since you've conceded that the theory of evolution doesn't answer that question, I think we're on the same page.

Actually I only read the Why part. The fact that man has a common ancestor with apes is something I fully believe. I don't see why man would be excluded really.

Why is in my opinion meaningless as I don't give things greater purposes.

The problematic of the issue is that you, as a layman, cannot discern the difference between Scientific information and a convincing-sounding bogus theory, as you are too undereducated/ignorant/dumb to understand the evidence. You can read the article about the evolution of bacterial flagellum(link elsewhere in the thread) as one example of evolutionary evidence and see whether or not you can reliably assess it to be fact or fiction. The fact is that there is a ####load of information and you simply cannot be an expert in everything, so you'll just have to take some information on belief basis.

The fact is that you'll either have to pick a theory you trust, educate yourself and research the evidence(this can take a few years, so this is not a viable option for the vast majority of fields of expertise) or contend to not knowing. There is a multitude of theories out there for any given field of expertise, but the one generally accepted by the Scientific community is usually your best bet to rely on being the correct one when you want to know something. You can count on those Scientists doing a lot of doubting before they accept a theory. Science goes forward, new information is gained and accepted theories change as new pieces of information are accepted.

Scientists know that they aren't omniscient. They just don't have any reason to believe the Creationist theories. Come up with something substancial with real evidence to back it up and they'll listen to you. "Team Evolution" is not incapable of admitting that they are not omniscient, they just haven't heard of a better theory yet.

This article reminded me of Death_Claw and this discussion, though it seems that Dr. Klomp had less evidence that the evolutionary theorists.

I decided to copypaste the following here. It is from http://dresdencodak.com/index.html :

The following was taken from a cave wall painting in southern Tunisia more than 300,000 years ago. Fossil evidence suggests that the author was of the species Homo erectus.

"Enough is Enough"
A Thinking Ape’s Critique of Trans-Simianism

To further expound upon the topic of last week’s installment, I will address the more specific claims of Dr. Klomp and his radical theory that has been gaining wider acceptance throughout the community. Once again I would like to thank our readers for sending in your fish bones and boar hides in support of this journalist’s campaign to expose Dr. Klomp’s trans-simianist prattle for what it is: a collection of wishful thoughts out of keeping with any factual evidence.

The term ‘trans-simian’ comes from the shortening of ‘transitional simian,’ a concept Dr. Klomp has developed to describe an individual who is in an evolutionary transition from simian to post-simian, though Klomp himself admits that he is not entirely clear what a true post-simian would be. Characteristics exhibited by a trans-simian include augmentation of one’s natural abilities with ‘tools,’ as well as one’s mental capacities with what has been dubbed ‘culture.’

Klomp’s primary argument rests on what he calls the 'Quickening,' an imagined point somewhere in the future when the advancement of ‘culture’ occurs so rapidly that its pace will far exceed that of biological evolution. In his own words,

"There will come a time when within a single generation we will develop one or possibly even two new ideas… Current advancements in the ‘bow’ and ‘arrow’ industries suggest an exponential trend in the expansion of our technological capacities. We are able to perform hunts in a fraction of the time it took our ancestors, thus freeing up valuable time to ' think ' of new ideas. In the post-simian world, we may develop into a species that is not only intellectually superior to our current state, but capable of feats beyond the comprehension of a contemporary simian."

Pardon this author for not holding his breath.

Notice that Klomp cherry-picks discoveries to better support his argument of an exponential growth. It took more than a million years to develop fire and the hand-ax, and yet Klomp believes simply because it took only 2,000 years to develop bows and arrows that new inventions will spring up in even shorter timeframes. This theory is an expansion of ‘Morg’s Law,’ which states that since a sharpened rock can in turn become a chisel to make an even sharper rock, that the sharpness of hand-axes will increase exponentially over the span of tens of thousands of years. While Morg’s Law has so far proven accurate, Klomp can’t escape the reality that there is an upper limit, namely that a rock can only become so sharp. We have already noticed a slight decline in the growth of hand-ax sharpness, but Klomp insists that when the potential of stone axes becomes exhausted, new materials will be discovered to replace the rocks and continue the exponential trend of sharpness. As of the time of this article, however, he has provided no evidence of what these miracle rocks are. Klomp also argues that there will come a time when we will use tools to create other tools, though naturally this is a laughable fiction since there has never been any recorded evidence of a tool making another tool, or even any records for that matter.

Another factor in Klomp’s post-simian world is the development of "abstract thought" that will be aided by

"the ability to store memories and thoughts outside our brains onto physical media, perhaps on flattened tree bark. To achieve this we will have to overcome the problem of turning words, which are sounds, into things we can see, but given current trends this is an engineering issue that will ultimately be resolved. This will be the real catalyst for the Quickening, when the memories of one generation will literally become immortal and then build upon the memories of the next, creating a sort of mass mind that experts in my field are calling “history.” In the post-simian world our era might even be referred to as pre-history."

Here we see Klomp’s predictions descend from unsupported speculation to sheer fantasy. His recent cave painting, The Quickening is Near, explains in great detail different methods we may employ to transform words into some kind of visible format, but all are incomplete. The simple fact remains that words are sounds, not pictures, and no amount of wishing will change that. Even if such a thing were possible, it is doubtful that many would wish to store their memories externally. This author, for one, would prefer it if his memories stayed in his head and not on some cold, lifeless bark.

The most shocking of Klomp’s predictions, however, is that we apes will have little or no place in the post-simian world.

"As technological progress outpaces biology, new selective pressures will arise that will force our species to evolve mentally and physically beyond what we are now. This is the same trend that gave rise to our own intelligent species, but it will only accelerate in the coming generations. Our new environment increasingly favors higher dexterity and intelligence, and so the true post-simian will not be an ape at all. It will share some similarities with the modern ape, but at the same time possess capacities far beyond our comprehension. The thought capacity of a single post-simian could be greater than the combined brains of every ape in the world."

More intelligent than an ape? Klomp fails to explain just what a post-ape can think of that we mere mortals cannot. The capacity of the simian mind is already far beyond any animal in the world: We are capable of using speech to let others know where we are, where to sleep and eat, and where to find shelter when it rains. Exactly how fast do we need our brains to be to figure these things out? When will we decide that enough is enough?

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that such a post-simian future is possible or even probable. Is it really a world we should want to strive for, where our very ape nature is stripped away in the name of efficiency? Technologies such as the bow and arrow already desimianize the act of hunting. While our ancestors were able to experience the pure ape feeling of clubbing an animal to death with a rock, we are left with the cold, sterilized bow that kills cleanly and quickly from a safe distance. This separation from basic daily activities is a slippery slope. What would happen if we no longer had to gather fruits and nuts, and they simply grew wherever we wanted them, or had drinking water flow right to our feet instead of wandering in search of streams for days? These seeming conveniences would rob us of what it means to be an ape. Klomp predicts that through a technology called ‘hygiene’ we could extend the simian lifespan well into the late 20s or possibly 30s. What exactly will the post-simian do with all that time? Do we really want to live in a society populated by geriatric 27- year- olds? In living so long and spending so much time ‘thinking,’ do we not also run the risk of becoming a cold, passionless race incapable of experiencing our two emotions (fear and not fear)? How much of our simianity are we willing to sacrifice for this notion of progress?

Rest assured that while Klomp may have accru ed a recent following, there is no reality to his fantastic claims. What is concerning is the increasing number of young apes spending less time clubbing animals and more time ‘inventing,’ ‘thinking’ and ‘creating,’ none of which contribute to the preservation of the simian way of life. These sorts of fads come and go, however, and this author is confident that in a short while everyone will have forgotten about Klomp and the notion of being anything more than an ape.”

-Thog
Professor of Finding an Animal and then Killing It,
The University of the Woods

-- Translated by Aaron Diaz of Dresden Codak

This is mildly off-topic, but it always fascinates me how many people equate evolution with atheism. I honestly don't see how people get this view in their heads that you cannot understand and acknowledge evolution as the theory of creation* and still believe in a God. Honestly, even the pope gets it**... why doesn't everyone else?






*Couldn't think of a better way to word it.
**Imagine a link here to a speech of the pope. If you want the actual wording by his popeness, look for yourself.

Granted, this is one of those areas where even some people I think are really smart disagree with me, but I do think there's some measure of correlation there, at least among the intellectually honest.

To some degree, I think science is its own religion, or a rejection of religions. I feel like you can't both believe that:

A) The answers are to be found in interacting with the world, exercising human intellect, and basically applying the principles of the scientific method

and

B) The ultimate answers are either unknowable, or are "Because God wanted it to be that way."

I have a theory about B which is that there's a fundamental barrier in being able to completely understand anything of far greater magnitude than ourselves. There are some layers of abstraction of sufficient complexity that it may be literally impossible for all normal people to be able to get their brain around.


The "big" questions (why life, what's the purpose, what's beyond existence, is there anything beyond that, etc) may simply be something we can never understand due to the limited capacity of our minds.

- Edit :

And since no one can prove me wrong at the moment, by default, I'm correct. Yay.

>"I have a theory about B which is that there's a fundamental barrier in being able to completely understand anything of far greater magnitude than ourselves. There are some layers of abstraction of sufficient complexity that it may be literally impossible for all normal people to be able to get their brain around."

Sure, it is more or less impossible to understand certain things. Like the distance and size involved in this picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Ultra_Deep_Field

>"The "big" questions (why life, what's the purpose, what's beyond existence, is there anything beyond that, etc) may simply be something we can never understand due to the limited capacity of our minds."

That if you have a need to give everything a greater purpose. Personally I'm quite fine with the idea that I'm just the product of my mom and dad and when I die I'm gone. That is what in my opinion people give religion etc credit were there should be none. They say well science deal with how and religion deals with why. No, religion makes stuff up. And that is the end of that.

Limitations of science and our minds does not prove or justify a belief in a superbeing that goes against everything we know about physics and uhm everything.

I'm not talking about religion. I agree with everything you say, but at the end of the day there is some "higher purpose". Or at the very least, there is some sort of reason "why this and not something else?".

That's the big question man has had since we possessed the ability to think.

No, I don't think "some guy with a beard made it" is the correct answer, but that doesn't mean I don't want to ask the question.

The bottom line in my mind, from my perspective, is once you start extrapolating to a certain degree past what's observable you're hazarding no more of an accurate guess than religions do.

That's what it basically boils down to. You've got science, which explains observable phenomena - once you start applying it to things you can't observe you're just guessing, with no verification. To that degree, I consider myself "scientifically agnostic", I'm a "show me" type of person and I'm not going to take anything on faith because I feel no need to. If its not something we can readily explain and observe - what use is there in taking the guesses so seriously? Hence, its an interesting starting point, but I take it no more dogmatically than that.

The bottom line in my mind, from my perspective, is once you start extrapolating to a certain degree past what's observable you're hazarding no more of an accurate guess than religions do.

That's what it basically boils down to. You've got science, which explains observable phenomena - once you start applying it to things you can't observe you're just guessing, with no verification.

The major difference being the records kept in every organism's DNA, as well as the fossil record. I don't understand how you can keep claiming that doesn't count as evidence, but it's an extension of the Argument From Ignorance.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Your mistake is that you believe I'm arguing in favor of intelligent design, whereas I am not. I'm arguing that you cannot claim to know something you have no knowledge of and dogmatically fighting over a belief is silly.

I'm not sure it's possible not to take offense to the idea any belief is silly. In my opinion, beliefs vital to human existence. Belief really is everything.

Yhorian

If the answer to the question 'Who/what is God?' would be 'The entity that created the universe and everything in it', from a scientific viewpoint, the mass of energy that started the big bang would be it*. (Unless there's an omnipotent being behind that, ofcourse ...)

The follow-up question ofcourse would then be: 'Is God sentient'.

But in the end, if 'he' is/was sentient or not doesn't really matter, cause it's not something you can really prove through scientific means.

* Certainly would give new meaning to the term: God is all around us

Just thinking out loud here ...

"What is mind, don't matter. What is matter, nevermind!" - Homer J. Simpson.

Oh, sure.

I think science, done right, looks at those kinds of things and admits they're question marks, whereas religion tends to instead provide an unverifiable answer answer.

It's reasonable for scientists, without wholly understanding all details of evolution, to say about parts of it: we think this works this way, because that jives with these five things we know are true. But it's just our best guess. We're going to generally proceed as though it were true, because that has a good chance of leading to interesting lines of research, including some that might disprove that best guess and help us make a better guess.

Granted, that's my sort of idealized version of science. I know there are people out there who seize on a theory and defend it religiously even in the face of evidence which contradicts it. In my mind those people have jumped from the science boat back to the religion boat, albiet a religion boat full of lab coats and purple rubber gloves.

The question's flawed. I'm not sure it's helpful to boil down everything on that Berkeley page into "The Theory of Evolution". Some folks who don't accept evolutionary theory *in total* may, for example, be entirely comfortable with micro-evolution by means of natural selection.

Well, when I said the scientific theory of evolution then I mean the total package as that is what the scientific consensus is today. As far as I know the microevolution only crowd is not taken very seriously.

Arguments on this topic: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/macroevolution.html

I know what you meant. My point was that the banner term "theory of evolution" actually encompasses lots of smaller bits, which people may or may not accept on an individual basis.

By and large, nobody really rejects microevolution by means of natural selection. And when I say "nobody" I'm including those who reject macroevolution.

When someone mentions the theory of evolution it will of course include speciation.

Okay. Then I probably fall into the naysayer camp.

Given the presupposition of no "extraphysical" intervention, I agree that evolutionary theory is probably the best explanation for the current variety of life on earth. Though, even given that assumption I'm somewhat inclined to suspect intervention of the non-extraphysical variety (read: extra-terrestrial but not divine).

As an explanation for the sum total of current biological diversity, evolutionary theory strikes me as being pretty speculative. It's not the sort of thing one can reproduce in the lab.

Do you think it will ever be possible? If no then you need to accept that everything we can know about our universe will be explainable by phenomena in the universe. Evolution is pretty rock solid in general and is certainly less speculative than believing extra-terrestrial influence in the process.

...certainly less speculative than believing extra-terrestrial influence in the process...

I'm just curious, how would you justify it is less speculative in any sort of manner that isn't a logical fallacy?

At the heart of that argument, should it be boiled down far enough, you find yourself addressing "First cause".

The primary argument in favor of science can represented as "there must be a physical cause and effect in all systems". Macroevolution is the effect of mutations (the cause), which in turn have inner cause/effects, which have inner cause/effects. Every observable, natural behavior is deterministic to some degree or another and science is the art of figuring out what the factors are. Religion states that things are supernatural, that things merely are. If you follow either path, you're left with a paradox. If everything is a cause/effect, then its inherently paradoxical leading towards the infinite. However if there is a "first cause", what came before that, who decided that is the nature of things?

I'd argue that saying either is more speculative than the other is pretty hard to determine.

I was saying that evolution is less speculative than extra-terrestrial influence in our planets development.

Right, I'm asking you how you came to that conclusion.

While there is some evidence of extra-terrestrial life forms (mostly bacterial) life evolving here doesn't have any of the problems that pangeo-genesis (It's something like that) possesses. Not to mention evolution has mounds of evidence in it's favor and extra-terrestrial intervention is just a speculation (in the truest sense) about what is possible without any proof of it actually happening.

I look at speculation as boolean, meaning either you're speculating or you are not. Either you know or you do not. Being that extra-terrestrial is defined as anything not from Earth, where do you draw the line in terms of "development of our planet"? At the very least, the planet itself is definately affected by extra-terrestrial influence - there's definately evidence that Earth did not create itself and there's "proof" to that effect. Suggesting that there could have been no external influence, either in the process of how evolution works (physics of it), or specific paths it has taken is equally lacking in evidence as saying the reverse.

In other words, you're making this argument in terms of logic :

1) Evolution requires no extra-terrestrial influence.
2) Evolution can be observed in the development of life.
3) Therefore evolution is the sole development of life on Earth without any extra-terrestrial influence.
4) Those who suggest 3 is false, contradict 1 & 2.

The logical fallacies and speculations come into play in #3/#4, both of which are logically incorrect. Furthermore you run into the "First cause" problem when you try to identify who created evolution, how it came about, etc.

You are either being stupid on purpose to be aggravating, or you lack fundamental abilities to seperate "probably true" from "no evidence of being true".

>I look at speculation as boolean, meaning either you're
>speculating or you are not.

Where you would be wrong. You can speculate on the exact nature of gravity (which isn't decided) and come up with plausible answers for why it behaves the way it does on certain scales and why that isn't consistent with our current understanding. You can also speculate that gravity doesn't exist because it doesn't always line up with that understanding. One of them is being stupid, the other is not.

>Either you know or you do not.

This is the kind of rabbit hole thinking that leads to questions like, "How do I know everything isn't happening in my head and no one else exists?" They are pointless and lead to no greater understanding.

>Being that extra-terrestrial is defined as anything not from
>Earth, where do you draw the line in terms of "development of
>our planet"?

Easy, either life originated here, or it didn't and was transplanted here from extra-terrestrial sources.

>At the very least, the planet itself is
>definately affected by extra-terrestrial influence

Yea, and the stars at night are pretty, but that isn't relevant.

> - there's
>definately evidence that Earth did not create itself and
>there's "proof" to that effect.

Huh?

>Suggesting that there could
>have been no external influence, either in the process of how
>evolution works (physics of it), or specific paths it has
>taken is equally lacking in evidence as saying the reverse.

Suggesting there there has been external influence when there is no evidence of it is silly. Prove you aren't controlled by aliens, because even though I have no evidence that says you are, I think you should be able to prove to that you are not.

>In other words, you're making this argument in terms of logic
>:
>
>1) Evolution requires no extra-terrestrial influence.

So far as we know, this seems to be the case.

>2) Evolution can be observed in the development of life.

Yep.

>3) Therefore evolution is the sole development of life on
>Earth without any extra-terrestrial influence.

In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, this certainly seems the most likely, but FSM and his noodly appendages can work some craziness.

>4) Those who suggest 3 is false, contradict 1 & 2.

Those who suggest number 3 is true because there is no evidence contrary to it must have some evidence supporting it... No? Then it doesn't seem all that likely does it.

>You are either being stupid on purpose to be aggravating, or
>you lack fundamental abilities to seperate "probably true"
>from "no evidence of being true".
>
>>I look at speculation as boolean, meaning either you're
>>speculating or you are not.
>
>Where you would be wrong. You can speculate on the exact
>nature of gravity (which isn't decided) and come up with
>plausible answers for why it behaves the way it does on
>certain scales and why that isn't consistent with our current
>understanding. You can also speculate that gravity doesn't
>exist because it doesn't always line up with that
>understanding. One of them is being stupid, the other is
>not.

But either the you have concrete evidence or you do not. Consider a stock that you know for a fact dropped $20 last month. There was no news or any obvious cause for why that happened. You may find evidence pointing towards one way or the other, but since you cannot travel back in time to witness it, you are speculating.

You will never *not* be speculating, you're still hazarding your best guess with the information that is available. If you take the opinions of people regarding light before the turn of last century, the theories that were changed and altered or scrapped, you'd have said those people were speculating based on their observations. They were later proved wrong, and still someone may prove that further wrong.

To say someone is speculating more or less than someone else would have to involve one or the other not speculating. If one has an abundance of evidence which necessitates its validity then they aren't speculating. When you're talking about things that happened in the past, you're always speculating, since you cannot prove it one way or the other.

>>Either you know or you do not.
>
>This is the kind of rabbit hole thinking that leads to
>questions like, "How do I know everything isn't happening in
>my head and no one else exists?" They are pointless and lead
>to no greater understanding.

Neither does "Well, Ptolemy observes that we're at the center of the universe, therefore it must be true." Its important to recognize what is a fluid and growing understanding compared to certainty. We are now certain the earth orbits the sun, at one point Copernicus was speculating that it did. Similarly at one point we speculated that all dinosaurs were lizards, now we're saying some had feathers and some did not, but we're still not *certain*.

>>Being that extra-terrestrial is defined as anything not from
>>Earth, where do you draw the line in terms of "development
>of
>>our planet"?
>
>Easy, either life originated here, or it didn't and was
>transplanted here from extra-terrestrial sources.
>
>>At the very least, the planet itself is
>>definately affected by extra-terrestrial influence
>
>Yea, and the stars at night are pretty, but that isn't
>relevant.

What I was driving at is that if there was a castalyst event, such as a meteor impact or the like, do you consider that extra-terrestrial influence? Thanks for being a #### though.

>> - there's
>>definately evidence that Earth did not create itself and
>>there's "proof" to that effect.
>
>Huh?

Do you understand what extra-terrestrial means? It doesn't mean little green men with lasers.

"originating or located or occurring outside Earth or its atmosphere"

Therefore, if say, the first bacterium was from a meteor, or produced when a meteor hit, you could say it was extraterrestrial influence that caused it. Furthermore, when a meteor wipes out a species and determines an evolutionary path, its done via extraterrestrial influence (IE, influence of something not from earth). That's a bit different than saying we were planted in the soil by little green men with lasers.

>>Suggesting that there could
>>have been no external influence, either in the process of
>how
>>evolution works (physics of it), or specific paths it has
>>taken is equally lacking in evidence as saying the reverse.
>
>Suggesting there there has been external influence when there
>is no evidence of it is silly. Prove you aren't controlled by
>aliens, because even though I have no evidence that says you
>are, I think you should be able to prove to that you are not.

There's no evidence of much of anything in terms of the original formation of RNA. Read up on Hubert Yockey.

>>In other words, you're making this argument in terms of
>logic
>>:
>>
>>1) Evolution requires no extra-terrestrial influence.
>
>So far as we know, this seems to be the case.
>
>>2) Evolution can be observed in the development of life.
>
>Yep.
>
>>3) Therefore evolution is the sole development of life on
>>Earth without any extra-terrestrial influence.
>
>In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, this certainly
>seems the most likely, but FSM and his noodly appendages can
>work some craziness.

That's where you're wrong, logically that statement is false. Additionally supernatural phenomena has more evidence supporting it than your average RNA hypothesis. At least people have witnessed that. I brought up Yockey since he considers the currently accepted model for RNA development to be a scientific equivalent to a leap of faith, without evidence to back it up.

On a personal level, I think it's possible to have a reasonable level of confidence in the existence of the supernatural. However, that doesn't translate into the ability to prove anything to a third party.

I hate to draw upon pop-culture references, but did you see the movie Contact? Foster's character is transported by means beyond our understanding to a place far away, where she has a discussion with an extra-terrestrial being. Upon returning no time has passed and to third-party observers it appears nothing has happened. If you're Foster in that situation, do you say to yourself, "Well, there's no evidence any of that happened so I must have just imagined it, perception be damned." Or do you trust your perception?

Many people have had such experiences in a religious context, which constitute "proof" for them of the existence of the supernatural. The onlooker can dismiss such experiences as hallucinations, tricks of the mind, etc., but for the person who experienced them? Not as easy.

To return to the origins of life on earth, even ignoring supernatural intervention, I don't think other non-supernatural alternatives to macro-evolution are entirely implausible. From what I understand, this was the basis for Clarke's 2001 book- the obelisks were a form of Von Neuman probe.

I own and have read (multiple times) Darwin's Origin of the species, though it's been a while. As Valg said, I haven't heard of any serious efforts that disprove his magnificent work.

Only thing, I think, is that it's not entirely clear what exactly triggers mutation. Or at least it isn't to me. I doubt it's about 'defects' in genetic material alone.

(radioactive) radiation probably has a part to play as well, as do climate and heat/cold changes, and probably many other factors.

"What is mind, don't matter. What is matter, nevermind!" - Homer J. Simpson.

Only thing, I think, is that it's not entirely clear what exactly triggers mutation. Or at least it isn't to me. I doubt it's about 'defects' in genetic material alone.

It's fairly well understood, at least in a broad sense. Some categories, and analogies to copying a book:

Typos: The easiest measurement of mutation rates are simply copying mistakes by the enzymes that handle replicating genetic material. Even the humble E. Coli uses at least 20 different proteins to copy its DNA, and depending on growth conditions it will make an error every 10⁸ to 10¹⁰ base pairs or about 1 error per 1,000 new bacteria. (Remarkably, the only reason it's that good is because some of those enzymes crawl along completed DNA and effectively edit out mismatches that cause distortions in the double helix.)

Finding a smudged word: Beyond that, pathogen, chemical, or radiation damage to genetic material can up that rate. If a given base pair has been modified (oxidized, etc.) it may not get 'read' correctly by the team of proteins, and the next generation may perpetuate that mistake. In the worst case scenario, the replication proteins get to the mistake and effectively fill in random junk.

Skipping a page by accident: There's also a host of mechanisms by which organisms (particularly those with high reproduction rates, like bacteria) cut, paste, shuffle, and otherwise modify their genome beyond simple copying errors. Most of these changes end up being lethal (and thus removed from the gene pool), but at a high enough reproduction rate it's still a sustainable strategy that can increase overall fitness-- every once in a while one of these mutant bacteria acquires a novel trait that allows it to either outcompete its ancestors or else occupy a niche unavailable to them.

Also, some macro-level mutations (eye color, some diseases, whatever) are actually the result of many genes interacting. There, even if the copying is perfect, just the usual shuffling of genes during sexual reproduction will occasionally produce a novel result from old pieces. Genetics is full of examples where the sum is very different than the parts.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

nt

"What is mind, don't matter. What is matter, nevermind!" - Homer J. Simpson.

I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that cancer is in fact over-mutation.

Caused by either natural defects in the genetic coding that lead to hazardous mutation (pretty rare I guess), or unhealthy influences, like smoking, chemical pollution, radiation, ..., which sadly is all too common.

"What is mind, don't matter. What is matter, nevermind!" - Homer J. Simpson.

I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that cancer is in fact over-mutation.

Caused by either natural defects in the genetic coding that lead to hazardous mutation (pretty rare I guess)

Not at all rare. This is why your family medical history is important-- if there is a high incidence of a specific cancer in your family, there is a higher chance that you carry a genetic mutation which renders you more vulnerable to it. (You could also share an environmental hazard, which is why genetic testing looks heavily at blood relatives raised in different places.) It's also why some diseases (Tay-Sachs, sickle cell, etc.) can run in specific ethnicities, regardless of place of residence.

, or unhealthy influences, like smoking, chemical pollution, radiation, ..., which sadly is all too common.

All of the above. Most cancers are the result of multiple defects-- your body has dozens of cancerous 'events' per day, but it's generally capable of detecting the aberrant cells and telling them to self-destruct. Only when the aberrant cell is either exceptionally hardy, or when the 'correction' mechanism (Google TP53 for an aexample) has also been damaged.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

The specific things that are needed to 'mutate', for a successful cancer, are related to the cells reproductive process. While free-radicals (often introduced by all the stuff Leprauchan mentioned) increase chances, there's always an inherent chance that you will develop Cancerous traits in an any ordinary cell during reproduction. This is one of the barriers to making ourselves immortal - there is absolutely no way we can control such a fine process and the longer we live, the more likely it is that the wrong cell breaks in the right way to for a malignant tumour.

Yhorian

PS - To Valg: Thought I'd ask a quick favour. I'm a student of genetics myself, I was hooked in by Telomeres back when I was thinking of University and it's what brought me in the direction of Biochemistry. It's often something I attack drunken friends with late at night while they're vulnerable, filling them with horrible dreams of immortality.

What I wanted to ask was related to the recent developments in understanding Cancer stem cells (and the theory that mutated tissue stem cells are the root of 99% of malignant tumours). Since almost all of our Cancer treatments still focus on killing majority cells instead of focusing on the stem cells - it's a really interesting time to pick people brains on the direction it might go.

I would be happy to know any ideas or opinions you've got on the subject. It's shockingly hard to find anyone nearly as nerdy as me, pursuing practical genetics to this level I'm assuming of course you've been following it, if you want me to shoot you my email address let me know and I'll aim it at valg@fields.

I re-read The Origin of Species a few years ago, and it's astonishing how powerful the work is, given its publication in 1859. I have a shelf and a half of books on the topic, mostly popular science works and a few textbooks, and it's easier to find questionable statements in a book by a modern author like Dawkins or Gould than Darwin. The fact that he wrote Origin without knowing of even Mendelian genetics/DNA, or any of a host of subsequent geological discoveries makes it that much more amazing.

In my opinion, Origin is the most important and influential work of non-fiction ever written. I believe it was Gould who wrote (may have been citing someone else) that the two most crucial blows to humanity's collective hubris were Copernicus teaching us that our world was not the center of existence, and Darwin teaching us that our species is not the center of our world.

As for the "It's only a theory" crowd, they'd do better questioning the theory of gravity. (Or learning what the word 'theory' means applied to science.) We're definitely wrong about gravity at some level (at very large or very small scales, our current theories make predictions incompatible with observations), but I'm not aware of any serious challenges to Darwin.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I think it explains some things about the situation but I'm always wary of taking the stance that we fully understand something. Would you say irreducible complexity is a myth/misunderstanding?

The human mind, for instance, is a finely and perfectly tuned device of intricate complexity which we have a cursory - at best - understanding of. As such, I'm not comfortable declaring that the Darwin theory is the final word on how it came about and the essence of life in general. More importantly though, I'm not confident we can absolutely say we can state how it came about without understanding how it works.

Its a tile in the mosiac, in my humble opinion. An important piece of the puzzle but still merely a piece.

"Would you say irreducible complexity is a myth/misunderstanding?"

Irreducible complexity is a term coined by a creationist and his examples has been refuted by the scientific community as far as I know.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html

Also the dover trial ruled:
"Professor Behe's claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity

Sadly the pseudo science of creationism and ID is good at propaganda and these are so complex things so you cannot demand that people have studied biology for 10 years before making a decision. So sadly a lot of people swallow the propaganda and truly believes that ID is scientific movement or that evolution is as much as a belief as a religion.

The concept is exactly that - a concept. I could care less about who created it or what their political agenda is - basically it boils down to this :

Does anything exist which would constitute as a system that - if reduced - is non-functional and therefore not likely the product of a step-by-step mutation process?

Now, its pretty hard to make something of that nature anyway, since anything has to at some point or another be constructed step by step. But it does present some questions. I just can't fathom the number of iterations you have to go to get from the chimpanzee brain to the human brain.

I think it explains some things about the situation but I'm always wary of taking the stance that we fully understand something. Would you say irreducible complexity is a myth/misunderstanding?

Nightgaunt's link goes much further, but I'd just say it's generally a logical fallacy-- a variant of the argument from ignorance. Behe's strategy is to look at the diversity of life, find things we don't understand, and conclude "We do not understand the development of _________, therefore evolution is false, and therefore a Designer did it." (One of the more prominent 'textbooks' of Intelligent Design was discovered to be a Creationist textbook, simply modified to remove references to 'God' and replace them with 'a Designer'.)

It's also referred to as the 'god of the gaps' argument. The joke is that every time a scientist confirms an intermediate species or function between A and Z, that just creates two new gaps! Behe's tried to nail down a few specific examples, but:

1) They get refuted, at which point he adopts the 'moving goalposts' strategy-- just name another difficult problem and claim that one means evolution is false. Nightgaunt's link has several specific examples worth reading, but a number of systems previously named 'irreducibly complex' turned out to have useful functions as parts before the whole came together.

2) He's stopped doing so in peer-reviewed primary journals. Anyone can print whatever they like in a book or editorial, but primary studies have to go through a rigorous process of verification before publication. Worse, if the claims are later found to be untrue, the journal editors will issue a formal retraction. If Behe and cohorts had real data, they wouldn't be fighting their case in the media and the Barnes & Noble.

The human mind, for instance, is a finely and perfectly tuned device of intricate complexity which we have a cursory - at best - understanding of. As such, I'm not comfortable declaring that the Darwin theory is the final word on how it came about and the essence of life in general. More importantly though, I'm not confident we can absolutely say we can state how it came about without understanding how it works.

It's not true that we don't know how it came about. There's a unbroken line of ancestral data from simple clumps of nerve cells up through the development of the spinal cord through a host of increasingly clever mammals, including us. There are proteins and structures shared all the way up the line, gradually being modified and complemented as the system increases in overall complexity.

It's also not true that the human brain is 'perfectly tuned'. There's a huge variation in performance, and there's no reason to believe our brains are optimal for anything even when healthy. Any number of brains turn on themselves to malfunction or die due to cancer, epilepsy, or other maladies. And given how important the brain is, why do we protect it only with a thin skull, and why are we so susceptible to concussions and other trauma? There are a number of functions that are jury-rigged kludges over simpler ways to do things, simply because your body has to work with the genes it inherits.

Read more examples of imperfect design here: http://talkorigins.org/faqs/jury-rigged.html

A generation ago, people didn't invoke the brain-- they invoked the eye. The problem is, over the past few decades we've pieced together the full function of the eye, along with the fact that not only can we show the path along which it evolved, but that eyes of some form evolved several times, independent of one another. (The selective pressure for even rudimentary vision over the wavelength illuminated by the sun is tremendous.) So again the goalposts move, and now it's in vogue to invoke the brain.

At the end of the day, I'm not a professional in the evolution field. I've read a great deal, and at least part of my university background covers it somewhat well, but it's not my core competency. Still, I probably have studied it more than 99% of people, and I readily admit there's quite a bit I don't know.

Nonetheless, I see a massive group of scientists publishing detailed study after detailed study confirming and refining the precepts of evolution. Their opposition is a hodgepodge of popular science, blogs, and editorials claiming only that because all of the branches of the tree of life haven't been mapped, evolution is wrong. I'm failing to see evidence against evolutionary theory-- specifically, challenges that remain unexplained despite intensive efforts, or better yet positive evidence for an alternative theory. (Strictly speaking, disproving Darwinian evolution would do nothing to prove Intelligent Design or Creationism.)

For me to claim that all the experts are wrong simply because I personally don't understand everything would be more than a bit arrogant.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I don't care about Behe, I mean the concept as a whole. By that I mean, do you not believe there is anything that exists in this world which is difficult to explain with "it randomly mutated until it became that way"?

I don't care what people invoke (brain, eye, bombardier beetle, etc). I'm saying that without understanding the full nature of something, you cannot claim to understand its origins - I chose the brain because its undeniable that there are aspects of it (savants, autism, etc) which are still big question marks for us.

I think evolution is undeniable, to some extent. However, I think its a piece of a larger puzzle which we are still piecing together.

"it randomly mutated until it became that way". Often people who say things like that usually exclude the whole thing about natural selection.

The things is that 99.8% of the scientists in these fields in the US see it as the truth. In other industrialised countries the number is even bigger due to much smaller amount of creationists. These scientists have asked themselves these questions and they have studied them for years. I don't see why people are so distrustful when it comes to this subject when they accept pretty much every other field of science without question.

Not for nothing but, "99.8% of scientists take it as gospel" means absolutely nothing to me. If you want to talk about the topic, feel free, but don't come at me with some half-assed appeal to authority argument.

Basically see my post above about "bottom line". Hubris starts when you start taking things on faith. You can explain why people have brown hair when they're born, but you can't explain the nature of how humans came about in a complete fashion. Thus you're asking me to make a leap of faith - and I don't do those.

Well, it is a mostly unknown subject to us as we are not experts on evolution. Me refering to the scientific community was simply to state that there is no scientific controversy when it comes to the subject. Trying to poke holes in the theory of evolution as laymans when thousands of scientists has spent over 100 years trying to do that is just silly.

So it essentially comes down who you are willing to put your trust in. If you doubt the scientists* you should ask yourself WHY are you doubting their findings and have you researched what they say about the subject?

* Yes, scientists are not one body or organisation. However when it comes to the framework of the theory of evolution I think almost all believe the same thing.

More people believe in Islam, maybe that's the truth. You haven't answered a single question I've posed other than "I don't know". In fact, your reason for not answering is "You're a layman, so your questions are invalid". That doesn't give me a whole lot of reasons to think I'm wrong - you basically just reversed your appeal to authority argument but you still haven't actually answered my questions.

If the answer is, "We don't know", then great - we're on the same page.

What questions do you mean? I'm just saying that for your argument that the scientists cannot explain X to be true you actually need to read what the scientific knowledge of the subject currently is.

For example, the flaggelum. Here is an article that refutes the claim of irreducible complexity: http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html
A small part of it:
"Type III virulence systems have well-conserved homologs of the following flagellar components (Plano et al., 2001): FliF (the membrane-embedded MS-ring); FlhA, FlhB, FliP, FliQ, FliR (integral membrane export components inside the MS-ring); FliI and FliH (ATPase and regulator); and FliG and FliM/N (the switch complex). The primitive type III secretion system would not necessarily have had all of the components that are conserved in the possibly derived virulence systems. In particular, if the type III virulence systems are derived, the homologs of the switch complex proteins (FliN/M, FliG) are probably retained only in order to stabilize/support the coadapted secretion complex and FliF ring, and are otherwise vestigial. "

I don't understand it and I guess neither do you? So there must be something other than the scientific evidence you doubt. Which I assume would be the scientific method as a whole. And yes, much like Islam I "blindly" trust the scientific method to give us the best explanation of reality. I'm not saying all results are true or even well done. But the transparancy of the system works extremely well and I see little reason at all to doubt something as big and well researched as evolution. Especially with the abundance of proof that is relatively accessable as a layman (atleast compared to some other fields of research)

>As such, I'm not comfortable
>declaring that the Darwin theory is the final word on how it
>came about and the essence of life in general.

I don't think science, in general, ever claims to have the final word on anything, merely the current best guess. Over a short term or for one paper or whatever, one scientist can fudge data to fit a theory that doesn't quite work and maybe get some people to buy into it (see: cold fusion) but over enough time, other people try things in the field and replicate experiments, and eventually the truth outs.

Ofcourse, the more complex a theory is, the harder it is to first understand it, and second disprove it.

The simple fact that Darwin's theory has been uncontested (successfully, at least) for close to 150 years, largely speaks in it favor ofcourse.
Certain points of it have been refined or been added upon, but, that I know, nothing of his theory has been proven to be false, or even unlikely.

It's possible though that in, say, 300 years, our knowledge has become vast enough to be able to disprove it. My bet would be on that it wont, though. Maybe it's indeed just a piece of a larger puzzle, but then it's likely the piece that sets us on the way to solving it completely.

"What is mind, don't matter. What is matter, nevermind!" - Homer J. Simpson.

Well, here's how I look at it :

"God theory": I don't understand it, so some greater being did it.

Darwin theory: Here's what I observe to be true on X scale, you can amplify it and apply it over a time period and that explains unobservable results.

The latter of course doesn't encompass the more important question of "why". It explains how it works, but of course doesn't explain why it works that way, as opposed to working another way, or whether or not there are other factors involved. That's the fundamental flaw with the perception of science. Its explaining an observation - assuming that if the explanation is reproducible that the understanding is complete. In essence science is the reverse engineering of our world. When I say, "its just a theory", its because science is far more nebulous and interpretable than logical systems. We're working with a black box, trying to understand what's in that box through deduction and experimentation. It will always be a fluid process, with our understanding subtly changing over time as we refine and adapt it to meet new observations.

Realistically we may never have the full understanding of the topic. So basically I look at the Darwin theory as "good start, needs work". But if you asked me if I "believed it", I'd say "what's to believe?" There are two parts of the Darwin theory :

1) Readily observable facts. IE - genes, reproduction passing genes, etc.

These don't require any belief - they're readily observable. This part is pretty much set in stone.

2) Unobservable assumptions. IE - the human eye is the result of many different mutations over the span of many many years.

These are the ones that require a "leap of faith", and I think its fair to say we're probably wrong here to some degree or another, or aren't accounting for something. That's a pretty defacto presumption of mine when we're making guesses rather than direct observations

2) Unobservable assumptions. IE - the human eye is the result of many different mutations over the span of many many years.

These are the ones that require a "leap of faith", and I think its fair to say we're probably wrong here to some degree or another, or aren't accounting for something.

You keep saying this, but it doesn't mean it's true. We're not the only species on the planet, and phylogenetic analysis gives a wealth of information that eyes evolved independently-- we know where the major branch points were, what tissues the eye's cells were originally from, what primitive eyes were like, etc.

There's actually evidence against 'intelligent design' here-- you have a blind spot because your optic nerve pokes through the retina instead of just connecting the photoreceptors from behind, etc. (The mollusk eye evolved from skin cells, not brain cells, and doesn't have this problem.)

The fact that you're unaware of these observations doesn't mean the theory is flawed, or that it's correct to call them a "leap of faith" when there's considerable evidence backing the above.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Can you observe a species as it evolves sight or not? Me thinks I smell bull.

- Edit :

In my quest for trying to explain what I'm saying better, someone pointed out to me that what I'm saying is documented in epistomology. Basically, in terms of contextualism, you can argue that microevolution is observable in a given context and therefore we have knowledge of microevolution. We don't have knowledge of macroevolution, we've never seen it happen. Your extrapolation of microevolution to macroevolution isn't knowledge, its your belief, there is justification for that belief but not in an infallible manner. Therefore it can be said that your belief in macroevolution via Darwin's theory is in your mind knowledge because its indefeasible. Sadly if I were to say "a higher being guides the hand of mutations", its an equally indefeasible argument. Neither can be defeated, but neither can be proved. Thus, I feel the "correct answer" is "we don't know".

Dig?

Sure:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

And also, that argument would make all our knowledge history worthless as you can never directly observe what has happened. So the argument itself is pretty stupid in my opinion.

Is it stupid? There's a whole aspect of philosophy based around what we "know" and what we do not "know". I'm ok with saying we don't "know" many things. We have observations and beliefs, often justified, often indefeasible, but those do not necessarily constitute knowledge. As such, you can say I'm truly agnostic, I have my observations and beliefs and justifications but I accept that in some cases I don't "know" things.

Well, that limits you to math when it comes to knowledge. And the rest is pretty much "We don't know".

Yes, but I'd be correct! Ha!

Can you observe a species as it evolves sight or not? Me thinks I smell bull.

Carl Everett, former outfielder for the Red Sox: "Nobody ever saw a dinosaur. The Bible doesn't say anything about them... You can make bones in the lab nowadays. And every year they come out with a different dinosaur movie, so does that mean that that dinosaur existed? A lot of things are being made that you would never see walk on this Earth."

Do you believe in dinosaurs? I think you're just trying to go for some kind of 'Aha!' moment, but that's kind of a silly statement to make. Historical sciences have standards of evidence also. Briefly, evolution makes predictions about what we should see in existing species as well as extinct ones, and those predictions can be tested.

We don't have knowledge of macroevolution, we've never seen it happen.

That's a false statement, as speciation has been directly observed and recorded a number of times, in quite different organisms. Beyond that, genetic evidence goes a long way, and concurs well with fossil records and other geological evidence.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I think you're just trying to go for some kind of 'Aha!' moment, but that's kind of a silly statement to make.

No, my point is that you feel the need to argue the original paradox, whereas I find it pointless. If you want to take a specific example (rather than basic speciation), you cannot observe mankind being created, or dinosaurs. In terms of Carl Everett's quote, it isn't something that I would debate. I concede that I assume there are dinosaurs, I have justification for why I believe there are dinosaurs, however I possess no *knowledge* that dinosaurs existed. To put it in another light, if someone were to ask me, "Are you 100% positive, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that dinosaurs existed?", I would be forced to answer "No". And I'm ok with that.

I possess no *knowledge* that dinosaurs existed.

All I needed to know, then.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Heh, you'll have a perfect understanding of the nature of the universe the second you admit you don't understand it.

No, it means I'm talking with someone who will hold all statements to an impossible standard of evidence, and I have better things to be doing. Week one of any philosophy course-- verify that sensible ground rules are in place.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

So you have knowledge of dinosaurs, tell me whether or not they had feathers? Which ones did and which did not? Your problem is not that you work with the evidence you have, your problem is that you view your limited viewpoint as if it encompasses certainty and anyone who isn't certain is either crazy or stupid.

It definately explains a lot about your personality though.

Your problem is not that you work with the evidence you have, your problem is that you view your limited viewpoint as if it encompasses certainty and anyone who isn't certain is either crazy or stupid.


As Daevryn's been mentioning, all I'm doing is using words in the context they're generally given. No scientific theory is or can be proven in some sort of exaggerated 100.00000000000000....% fashion., no matter how many observations people make. But no one asks if you "believe in gravity", even though our understanding of evolution is in many ways superior.

Otherwise, you're in a vacuum, claiming no one can or does know anything, or ever has. It's utterly useless for discussion. It doesn't make one a skeptic, just a contrarian, and it's not a tactic that most people will tolerate for long in a serious discussion.

So what most people do is assume that we can interact with the universe in a meaningful, and that knowledge is possible. If someone asked how to fix their car, and you responded "Cars aren't certain to exist.", you'd be regarded as either crazy or facetious.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

You're blowing the argument out of propertion. Its possible to fix a car, and therefore the fact that you can fix a car necessitates that cars exist and can be fixed.

Evolution does not necessitate that its mutually exclusive to outside influence, nor does the state of life on earth necessitate that they've been derived via evolution. In fact, the very fact that we can manipulate genes proves that principle, because you can create something by means other than random mutation. The fact that evolution doesn't reconcile against itself is why you cannot claim what you're claiming as knowledge.