Finally... More Young Americans Who 'Believe' in Evolution Than Creationism

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Chaotic42

Chaotic42

Lifer
Jun 15, 2001
35,243
2,379
126
John Connor said:
You are very myopic. Describe why these processes happen in a particular why. Why do all of these spin? God could have made a completely different universe beyond your meager understanding.
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The wonderful thing about mathematics and in turn the hard sciences is that you can start from scratch, from the axioms, and build the entire thing up. So if you really want to understand these things, you're going to literally have to start from the beginning and read through all of the math and then all of the physics.

Now if you're asking why certain constants are the way they are, like the fine structure constant, those are more difficult questions. String theorists say there's something on the order of 10^500 possible combinations of all of these things. A lot of people will use the Anthropic Principle to explain it - if things weren't just right for life, there wouldn't be life here to question the state of the universe. That's the rub with having a sample size of one.

Leonard Susskind has written a couple of books on the subject, if you're interested. "The Cosmic Landscape" would be particularly relevant to the discussion. It's a good book.
 
Chaotic42

Chaotic42

Lifer
Jun 15, 2001
35,243
2,379
126
The term "theory" has a different meaning in science and it's very unfortunate that this is the case. Dictionary.com says:
-
a coherent group of propositions formulated to explain a group of facts or phenomena in the natural world and repeatedly confirmed through experiment or observation:
the scientific theory of evolution.
-

Calling something a scientific theory carries a lot of weight. The closest thing to the layman definition of theory would be a hypothesis, but even that carries some expectation of falsifiability.
 
GagHalfrunt

GagHalfrunt

Lifer
Apr 19, 2001
25,284
1,998
126
pcgeek11 said:
You stated " Scientific theories are Facts. "

A theory is not a fact.

They are two different things. Read a dictionary.
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LOL! Just when I thought it would be impossible for you to make a bigger fool of yourself, you've done it!! Bravo!!

photofunky.gif


You need to read zippy. People that try to argue the "theory is not a fact" thing in science are proving themselves to be monumental asshats. Seriously, there is not a more ignorant argument to make and there is nothing you could do to mark yourself as any more clueless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory
 
pcgeek11

pcgeek11

Lifer
Jun 12, 2005
22,394
5,004
136
OK. I was wrong about "scientific" theory.

At least I didn't use a wiki as a source

I had never heard that before, I'm not a science major... It seems stupid for the word to have two distinct opposite meanings.

Theory
noun
noun: theory; plural noun: theories
a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained. "Darwin's theory of evolution"

Fact
noun
noun: fact; plural noun: facts
  1. a thing that is indisputably the case. "the most commonly known fact about hedgehogs is that they have fleas" synonyms: reality, actuality, certainty; More truth, verity, gospel
    "it is a fact that the water is polluted"
 
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pcgeek11

pcgeek11

Lifer
Jun 12, 2005
22,394
5,004
136
Looking up the term scientific theory still doesn't provide that a theory is a fact. Maybe we are all confused.

Or maybe you are the asshat. I am more inclined to trust the links below over a Wikipedia Article.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/scientific-theory


noun

1.a coherent group of propositions formulated to explain a group of facts or phenomena in the natural world and repeatedly confirmed through experiment or observation:the scientific theory of evolution.

https://www.livescience.com/21491-what-is-a-scientific-theory-definition-of-theory.html

The process of becoming a scientific theory
Every scientific theory starts as a hypothesis. A scientific hypothesis is a suggested solution for an unexplained occurrence that doesn't fit into a currently accepted scientific theory. In other words, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a hypothesis is an idea that hasn't been proven yet. If enough evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, it moves to the next step — known as a theory — in the scientific method and becomes accepted as a valid explanation of a phenomenon.


Tanner further explained that a scientific theory is the framework for observations and facts. Theories may change, or the way that they are interpreted may change, but the facts themselves don't change. Tanner likens theories to a basket in which scientists keep facts and observations that they find. The shape of that basket may change as the scientists learn more and include more facts. "For example, we have ample evidence of traits in populations becoming more or less common over time (evolution), so evolution is a fact but the overarching theories about evolution, the way that we think all of the facts go together might change as new observations of evolution are made," Tanner told Live Science.


Theory basics

The University of California, Berkley, defines a theory as "a broad, natural explanation for a wide range of phenomena. Theories are concise, coherent, systematic, predictive, and broadly applicable, often integrating and generalizing many hypotheses."


Any scientific theory must be based on a careful and rational examination of the facts. Facts and theories are two different things. In the scientific method, there is a clear distinction between facts, which can be observed and/or measured, and theories, which are scientists' explanations and interpretations of the facts.
Tanner told Live Science.

https://www.britannica.com/science/scientific-theory

Empirical laws and scientific theories differ in several ways. In a law, reasonably clear observational rules are available for determining the meaning of each of its terms; thus, a law can be tested by carefully observing the things and properties referred to by these terms. Indeed, they are initially formulated by generalizing or schematizing from observed relationships. In the case of scientific theories, however, some of the terms commonly refer to things that are not observed. Thus, it is evident that theories are imaginative constructions of the human mind—the results of philosophical and aesthetic judgments as well as of observation—for they are only suggested by observational information rather than inductively generalized from it. Moreover, theories cannot ordinarily be tested and accepted on the same grounds as laws. Thus, whereas an empirical law expresses a unifying relationship among a small selection of observables, scientific theories have much greater scope, explaining a variety of such laws and predicting others as yet undiscovered.

A theory may be characterized as a postulational system (a set of premises) from which empirical laws are deducible as theorems. Thus, it can have an abstract logical form, with axioms, formation rules, and rules for drawing deductions from the axioms, as well as definitions for empirically interpreting its symbols. In practice, however, theories are seldom structured so carefully.

 
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zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,978
31,534
146
AMDisTheBEST said:
Evolution is just biology, biology is organic chemistry, organic chemistry is the interaction of atoms, atoms is the interaction of fundamental forces and elementary particle which are just physics.
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Biology is evolution. There is no biology without evolution. Life, simply doesn't work without it. It just doesn't. I'm sorry, but modern medicine, without evolutionary theory, simply doesn't exist. Fatty diabetic evolution denier sure does need their insulin, right? Oh shit, too bad the natural law of evolution has made the synthesis of their life-saving insulin nectar possible. I guess they still don't care though...

yes, from chemistry to physics to the basic fundamentals of nature, they are all connected, but that is not what I said. I referred to biologists and physicists and chemists. not the fields. That is fundamentally important. I'm talking about communication between them, those that actually work in science.

As a well, professional scientist for nearly two decades now, I can tell you how the fields are separated within their own tight cocoons, fundamentally disregarding or generally ignorant of that outside of their niche. Even with all of molecular biology...you have your immunologists, your developmental biologists, evolutionary biologists, geneticists, etc. All working on the same thing, and speak the same language, but not quite the same math. Or at least, we don't often need the same equations.
 
zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,978
31,534
146
pcgeek11 said:
You stated " Scientific theories are Facts. "

A theory is not a fact.

They are two different things. Read a dictionary.
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[insert most gigantic face palm in the known history of face palms in the Universe]

Fuck man, you sound like a caricature saying shit like that.

Is this real? Is it possible that functional humans, today, still think this way? Is that even possible? Tell me this isn't true.
 
zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,978
31,534
146
AMDisTheBEST said:
Really? Is a higher being seeding life really that unbelievable? Would you choose not to that believe farmers seeded and bring life to the carbohydrates you eat?

Life does not come naturally, some higher being created it. Who created higher being does not matter because higher being might not even be “life”.

We can live in a computer simulation for all we know and our god can be an AI.
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Just because?

why?

you start with evidence and statement, then make a claim without any evidence. Why is this? Why do you play at science, then abandon it in totality, for the simple convenience of not wanting to deal with further questions on one specific topic?

This is the problem with physicists: all math and limited, blithe understanding of biological or chemical processes.
 
D

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,330
126
John Connor said:
I like how the atheists think they know there is no God. Then proced to use the judicial system to tear down a religion. That by definition is Nazism.
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When the hell did an atheist ever even attempt to use the judicial system to prevent anyone from going to church? Please tell me when this vile attack occurred so I can join you in your outrage and attempt to get real justice for the victims!
 
D

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,330
126
AMDisTheBEST said:
Protein ain’t life. It is organic substance yes but anything carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen based is organic chemistry, heck that is all there is to the word organic. It is just a long complex compounds made up of bunch of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms. There is nothing special about them. Pretty sure you can spot them naturally occurring in places like upper atomosphere of planet Jupiter.

Today, earth is in a better condition than ever to support life. Why isn’t life arising out of none living substances today? Why the hell do you need to go back to 3 billion + years ago when earth was bombarded by meteors and a hellish toxic environment to search for sign of Abiogenesis?

That is just ridiculous.
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If we found a single cell organism that was just created how exactly would we know that it was just created and not just some newly discovered organism? How do suppose we should go about having people looking in microscopes at the point of lightning impacts?
 
D

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,330
126
AMDisTheBEST said:
Really? Is a higher being seeding life really that unbelievable? Would you choose not to that believe farmers seeded and bring life to the carbohydrates you eat?

Life does not come naturally, some higher being created it. Who created higher being does not matter because higher being might not even be “life”.

We can live in a computer simulation for all we know and our god can be an AI.
Click to expand...

Yes, really. In order to be a scientific theory you require hard evidence. You know, the kind of hard evidence that Evolution has.
 
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