Evolution is only a theory...or is it?

[Gibsons]

It cannot be tested.

Yes, it can, and has been.

Mutations occur, granted. But how these mutations help species adapt to environments cannot be measured.

Yes it can. "Fitness" can be quantified in many cases.

The physical environment of the Earth has been the same for 10,000 years, since the last Ice Age. It would take another major shift in global climate to trigger evolution.

Not sure if serious...

Evolution in humans has essentially ceased.

Wholly incorrect.

 

[Cuda1447]

Gravity is still a theory too. I'm pretty damn confident in it though.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Not buying it, sorry.

I'll be grumpy right back. Who cares whether you buy it or not? Revised - Scientific evidence does not require your acquiescence.

 

[Juddog]

I'll be grumpy right back. Who cares whether you buy it or not? Facts do not require your acquiescence.

I don't buy that the ground will hit me if I jump off this building, after all gravity is "just a theory".

*splat*

 

[Phokus]

Evolution has already been observed in a laboratory setting.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Lenski_affair

The above link is a must read, a bitch idiot conservative (who happens to own conservapedia) tried to refute the findings but got his ass handed to him by the scientist who did the research and actually made him more famous as a result.

 

[Braznor]

People fail to understand that evolution is mutation PLUS selection.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I don't buy that the ground will hit me if I jump off this building, after all gravity is "just a theory".

*splat*

You got me before the edit. I was trying to keep the semantic BS from starting up like always. But, meh, the way you followed it up was pretty damned solid. like hitting the ground after jumping off a tall building

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Egads, another one. The mountain of evidence in the geological record demonstrates changes in species over long periods of time. We now have an understanding of how information is stored and passed down from one generation to the next and how that changes. That happens to be called evolution. Changes which are beneficial give an organism a survival edge. Those that aren't don't. If someone wants to believe differently be my guest, but until they have a competing theory with compelling evidence evolution stands.

 

[Juddog]

Evolution has already been observed in a laboratory setting.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Lenski_affair

The above link is a must read, a bitch idiot conservative (who happens to own conservapedia) tried to refute the findings but got his ass handed to him by the scientist who did the research and actually made him more famous as a result.

Thanks for the link... reading the chain of letters left me feeling a bit dumbfounded that someone could criticize a scientific paper without actually reading its content. It just amazes me how many mental hoops some people will jump through in order to justify their agenda.

 

[Fritzo]

so evolution and creationism can both be considered theories?

No, evolution has scrutinized evidence from many sources to prove its existence.

Creationism is an idealism- you come up with a solution and then try to shape evidence to fit that solution.

The difference between science and idealism is scientists hate each other- they will try to poke holes and disprove any new ideas that are brought in front of them. If they can't do it, it becomes a theory.

Idealism says "I think this is the way things should be", then challenges everyone to shape the world to fit that view. When you step back and look at this process, you can see how illogical and destructive it can be.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

can a scientist practicing science create a conscious being from organic matter?

Yes. It takes a few months though, and generally requires two scientists working together.

You can find how-to videos on many websites, but the mods would probably ban me if I posted links.

 

[Phokus]

Thanks for the link... reading the chain of letters left me feeling a bit dumbfounded that someone could criticize a scientific paper without actually reading its content. It just amazes me how many mental hoops some people will jump through in order to justify their agenda.

Welcome to the Republican Party

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Thanks for the link... reading the chain of letters left me feeling a bit dumbfounded that someone could criticize a scientific paper without actually reading its content. It just amazes me how many mental hoops some people will jump through in order to justify their agenda.

That's been "discredited" be some because it still looks the same. That leads to "microevolution" vs "macroevolution" and the bar is raised. When someone sees a reptile spontaneously transform into a mammal then they might buy it. Unfortunately for those who use these terms which they invented the mechanisms postulated in advance of the experiment about evolution are in effect here and really won't do.

Oh, my wife who you claim isn't real hears this argument from the occasional student you claim doesn't exist.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Welcome to the Republican Party

Or Obamacare

 

[Fritzo]

Welcome to the Republican Party

LOL- it wasn't always like that #yearnsforthe80's

 

[Gibsons]

Bullshit. Science doesn't even know why proteins fold the way they do or why it's so important for them to fold. Without that information, it is patently absurd to insinuate that scientists "are close" to explaining how life and consciousness have started.

You're confusing "why" with "how." We certainly know why it's important for them to fold correctly. How they fold is a little trickier. In any case, we know a great deal more about protein folding than you're implying. The basic mechanics are very well understood, predictions from primary sequence data can be reasonably accurate in some cases. It's a technique that's constantly being refined and improved as well.

Our ability (or lack thereof) to predict protein structures has nothing to do with evolution though.

The building blocks of life are amino acids, and we have no clue as to why they form or where they came from, and we're about as close to explaining that as we are to traveling to the center of the Sun.

Again, "why" and "how" are different words. Given the conditions on primordial Earth, research seems to indicate it would be difficult for amino acids not to form.

This has nothing to do with evolution though.

Granted, I suppose there's some possibility that it amino acids formed randomly over billions of years and then learned how to replicate themselves over billions more years. I'd say the probability of it happening again randomly in nature is about as high as there being some sort of "intelligent designer" who crafted our lives as we know it.

Making amino acids from a primordial soup is the easy part, and it almost certainly wouldn't take billions of years. As for replication, look to RNA, then DNA, not amino acids. We'll never know with absolute certainty, but a somewhat detailed and plausible explanation of what likely happened seems within reach. Or maybe not, who knows.

This has nothing to do with evolution though.

Hell, maybe there does exist a different metaphysical universe parallel to our own where beings far more advanced than we are live. And perhaps their understanding of matter and science is sufficiently advanced from our own that they have the capability to bring life into being. Personally, I like the idea of there being a progenetor race, like in Star Trek.

It's possible.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Look, I don't know how to put it more simply than I already have. In order for your disagreement to stand you would have to defend the idea that we don't really know that subatomic particles decay at random intervals. If this is not your claim, then you are not intelligent enough to understand the implications if your own statements, and thereby you have utterly disqualified the rest of your opinions.


Do you have any evidence that life actually started?



This is a discussion about science. So-called "intelligent design" has no place in a discussion about science.

So, you're going to go the opposite of the religious zealots and take the extreme opposite stance eh? Sigh. Let me guess, you're a "science knows all and is infallible" type guy? (and probably right handed).

BTW, this is far from a scientific thread. It's an opinion troll thread with scientific and non scientific discussion within it, smart guy. I get the impression you think I don't believe in evolution, which is not at all true. My point of view was that these discussions really only come about in comparison to "god created us", "no he didn't, we evolved". Well, both could have happened in some form (god, creator, out of the blue, big rock smashed into a chunk of ice and poof) To say otherwise when you don't actually know what started life is small minded, no matter how smart you THINK you are.

To use your example "X" may not be known and until it is solved it is still "X". If it were actually known it wouldn't be called a variable. Until it is no longer "X" it is still hypothesis/theory.

I don't know how much simpler I can put it. If you can't accept that "knowing why" is pretty much the sole thing humans strive for, then you can't understand the basic principle of any of it (scientific or religious).

 

[Vdubchaos]

It's pretty simple. Evolution has more scientific evidence and makes more sense (to me).

Religion on the other hand, doesn't make sense AT ALL.

 

[Juddog]

That's been "discredited" be some because it still looks the same. That leads to "microevolution" vs "macroevolution" and the bar is raised. When someone sees a reptile spontaneously transform into a mammal then they might buy it. Unfortunately for those who use these terms which they invented the mechanisms postulated in advance of the experiment about evolution are in effect here and really won't do.

Oh, my wife who you claim isn't real hears this argument from the occasional student you claim doesn't exist.

When you provide evidence of your claims, I will believe you. Until then, you're just a clown on the internet making up stories.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Bullshit. Science doesn't even know why proteins fold the way they do or why it's so important for them to fold. Without that information, it is patently absurd to insinuate that scientists "are close" to explaining how life and consciousness have started.

The building blocks of life are amino acids, and we have no clue as to why they form or where they came from, and we're about as close to explaining that as we are to traveling to the center of the Sun.

Granted, I suppose there's some possibility that it amino acids formed randomly over billions of years and then learned how to replicate themselves over billions more years. I'd say the probability of it happening again randomly in nature is about as high as there being some sort of "intelligent designer" who crafted our lives as we know it.

Hell, maybe there does exist a different metaphysical universe parallel to our own where beings far more advanced than we are live. And perhaps their understanding of matter and science is sufficiently advanced from our own that they have the capability to bring life into being. Personally, I like the idea of there being a progenetor race, like in Star Trek.

That's not to say that evolution (or, rather, mutation) doesn't occur. A person would have to be a moron to claim that it doesn't. But discounting that someone (let's call it alien) engineered the first life as a possibility for the beginnings of life on this planet pretty much makes you just as much of a close-minded fool.

You've got to be fucking kidding. Talk about bullshit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller–Urey_experiment
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/ribonucleotides/

Yeah we have no idea how shit could just randomly start operating like that. We already know the mechanisms for most of this stuff (the fact that you point out that we know proteins fold and well I'm not sure why you claim we don't know why its important that they do but whatever), but we can't simulate the conditions perfectly, nor has anyone been able to carry out an experiment that can simulate the time scale, so we haven't been able to reproduce all the steps, but acting like that means we have no fucking clue how things happened is just absurd and shows you to be the close minded fool.

Again, some of you act like we don't know jackshit. We have very good ideas of how things happened and yes, it being a random occurrence over millions/billions of years is very much more plausible than "durr aliens could've done it!". Just because you either don't know or can't understand or grasp it doesn't mean we don't know anything like you posit.

You want to know why we can dismiss most of your "magical engineers"? Because we know for a fact that men literally fabricated the deities they claim did this. That's another thing we absolutely do know is true. But let's ignore all the Gods and go with your alien intelligence. So tell me, which is more plausible the thing we have a ridiculous amount of evidence for, where we know the mechanisms by which things could have happened albeit without knowing exactly all the steps in the process, or say the thing we have literally no evidence for at all whatsoever? Just because the chances of how things as we believe they happened are seemingly random chance with seemingly ridiculous odds, well believe it or not, those odds are actually better than what you suggest is every bit as likely.

Shit, just noticed you basically just admitted you just want to believe fantasy.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

When you provide evidence of your claims, I will believe you. Until then, you're just a clown on the internet making up stories.

Funny, this clown knew about the arguments against the paper and you didn't. I really pissed you off with my blasphemy.

 

[Juddog]

Funny, this clown knew about the arguments against the paper and you didn't. I really pissed you off with my blasphemy.

I see you are sinking further into fantasy-land. Please go pet a unicorn for me.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Gravity is still a theory too. I'm pretty damn confident in it though.

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2376

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

So, you're going to go the opposite of the religious zealots and take the extreme opposite stance eh? Sigh. Let me guess, you're a "science knows all and is infallible" type guy? (and probably right handed).

Not even in the slightest.

BTW, this is far from a scientific thread. It's an opinion troll thread with scientific and non scientific discussion within it, smart guy. I get the impression you think I don't believe in evolution, which is not at all true. My point of view was that these discussions really only come about in comparison to "god created us", "no he didn't, we evolved". Well, both could have happened in some form (god, creator, out of the blue, big rock smashed into a chunk of ice and poof)

I have never suggested that it was not possible for evolution to be true in a theistic universe

To say otherwise when you don't actually know what started life is small minded, no matter how smart you THINK you are.

You don't get to interrogate others for the cause of life's origin until you demonstrate conclusively that it has an origin.

To use your example "X" may not be known and until it is solved it is still "X". If it were actually known it wouldn't be called a variable. Until it is no longer "X" it is still hypothesis/theory.

It is becoming clear that you are inadequately equipped to comprehend my arguments.

I don't know how much simpler I can put it. If you can't accept that "knowing why" is pretty much the sole thing humans strive for, then you can't understand the basic principle of any of it (scientific or religious).

I know that "knowing why" is not the "sole thing" that I "strive for," so clearly your premise is faulty.

 

[ElFenix]

If you weren't there to actually observe it, it's a theory. We just don't live long enough to observe it since it takes so much time to happen. Evolution? Yeah it could of happened that way, God? sure it could of happened that way, or maybe an Alien just decided to take a crap on Earth one day and it could of happened that way.

we can and have watched evolution happen in things that reproduce fast enough. and that's not limited to bacteria. there's an island off the croatian coast where lizards have evolved to become more herbivorous than their bug eating ancestors. the lizards were only introduced in 1970.