Ok. This is going to be a purposeful double post (I want to make sure all the quotes show properly), so please read everything before you reply.
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I feel like I'm arguing on both sides while I write this, so if you think the same as you read, you're not alone. I can't honestly say where I stand on everything. But there are parts that are definitely true, and parts that are harder to take.
QUOTE(Jake @ Apr 19 2007, 06:47 PM)
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But when it comes to school. At the age that evolution is taught most students don't realize that it is just a theory. Not scientific law.
I know this is mentioned already by someone else, but a theory in science is a set of hypotheses that have been tested thoroughly and are generally considered true. It is also falsifiable (as hypotheses must also be), which means that there must be some condition/situation which if found to be true would prove it false.
QUOTE(Phieta @ Apr 19 2007, 11:20 PM)
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Actually, a "theory," in the scientific sense, is something that is generally accepted as true based on the evidence we have, but cannot be explicitly proven.
From what I recall, nothing in science can be -proven- true. Basically, everything in science is considered true unless it is proven false.
The problem with teaching things like creationism, intelligent design, and even parts of evolution, is that they can't be falsified, so they're technically not in the realm of science.
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QUOTE(Rohtaren @ Apr 23 2007, 04:26 PM)
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evolution is a fake. it would be very rare that good mutations occur.
Well, considering the actual definition for evolution is "a change in allele frequencies over time," it's technically impossible for anyone to say evolution is, as you put it, "a fake." Basically that means there's a certain percentage of copies of at least two kinds of each gene in a population (individuals can't evolve), and over time, if they change, evolution of that population occurs. Seriously, all evolution really is is populations of organisms adapting to their environment. This doesn't usually require mutations, good, bad, or neutral. The variation in the population is usually enough. Now, whether these populations over time become new species (quite feasible, although that depends on which of the couple dozen species concepts you want to use), or even other kinds of animals (fish --> frogs, for example) is another question.
QUOTE(Rohtaren)
an animal or other organism can't decide what type of shape it will have when it is born.
example, the woodpecker couldn't decide when it first died of banging its beak on the bark of a tree that it would have a really hard beak or special tendons in the back of its head for support before it was born again... or whatever.
Yes, this is true. However, Lamarckism* is already quite well shown false. But what could have happened (and this is one of those things you just have to take on faith, but you can show similar things happening in other organisms) was there were some birds that found that bugs living under tree bark were quite tasty (nutritious) but that it was hard to get to them. Some of them may have had some feature that made them a little better at getting the bugs, so those birds were able to have more and/or healthier babies, who also have this ability/trait (assuming it's something they can pass on genetically), who in turn have more/healthier babies with this trait (perhaps more pronounced, as this trait is being "selected for" (which doesn't necessarily mean anything is choosing, natural selection is neutral, directionless, essentially "survival of the fittest," those best suited to the environment at that time (see Galapagos finches, sometimes the ones with the big, heavy beaks were favored, sometimes they weren't)) and so on. I will grant that that doesn't explain the structure of their skulls, tongues, and beaks (and I honestly don't have an explanation, so I'm not going to try to make one up).
*Lamarck's idea was basically that an individual could adapt to its environment. Most famous example, the giraffe, he thought that it started with a short neck, and it stretched its neck to reach higher leaves, then this was passed on to the offspring, who also stretched -their- necks, passed that on, and so on until modern giraffes.
QUOTE(Rohtaren)
besides, what is the probablitity that two organisms (of the opposite gender from each other) that have the same mutations (which is also rare) would meet each other, mate, and manage to not kill each other because they might be from waring groups or some other thing like that.
It could become quite high under a number of circumstances. If the mutation isn't bad, but instead neutral, or even good (the majority of mutations ar neutral), then it can stay in the population for quite some time. If the mutation happened to be in the dominant allele, the trait (which is different from the mutation itself) could actually spread rather rapidly since it would only require one copy instead of two.
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big bang is also fake. where did the particles that came together and created the big bang come from? hmm? thats a very good point that i think wasn't thought through when those silly scientists were coming up with the big bang theory.
I'll leave big bang for the physicists, but you don't make any friends or get any points from name calling. Or accusing people of not thinking things through. Many, many people have spent years of their lives working on one topic, like big bang theory. I think they've done -a lot- of thinking. For that matter, I spent several years studying biology, and sure you have to take a lot as fact (it's hard to deny fish have fins, butterflies have wings, that sort of thing), but you still have to think a lot of things through so that they either make sense, or you have a topic for research on why whatever you were told is wrong.
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QUOTE(Nuu™™ @ May 21 2007, 04:51 AM)
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Well, on Compass last night they had some programme by some fellow known as Richard Dawkins, who apparently is some evolutionary professor that gets a lot of American 'Bible belt Christians' rather annoyed. To cut straight to the point, I basically know what so called 'Creationism' is.
Actually, he annoys me too. I've never been able to get through any of his work because he starts in with name-calling right near the beginning. He might know what he's talking about (well, I'd imagine he must, or he wouldn't have gotten to where he is), but I believe the saying is something like "you don't catch flies with vinegar." A well-reasoned argument should be able to stand on it's own, no name-calling or other kinds of personal attacks should be necessary.
QUOTE(Nuu™™)
To put this into context, people who are unsure of whether evolution is correct think that it is based on reasoning which is quite uncertain. To be frank, it isn't. If one believes that DNA and mutation and sex exist, one should believe in evolution with the same amount of certainty. I, myself, confess that I don't really know a lot about evolution, so correct me if I am wrong (cite your sources as well), but I will try to demonstrate the deduction that Darwin reached in natural language:
See, that's where the problem comes in. There are some parts of evolution that everyone should be able to accept. We have lots of evidence and falsifiable hypotheses, and good solid theory. Things get sticky when you start talking about where life originated, and where different organismal groups came from. There is DNA evidence for common ancestry, and some fossil evidence of 'transitional' forms, but unfortunately we can't go back and watch, or perform tests that 'prove' anything, when it comes to that.
QUOTE(Nuu™™)
If the beneficial differences differed from the beneficial differences of other environments, then these differences could escalate, as described above; then they could become a seperate species. If there were multiple seperate species, then the diversity of species we see today could arise.
Yes, exactly. Except this only explains where species could come from if you already have some species to start with. (And it could be extended to how the different groups of organisms arose, at least until we get into details, like where multicellularity came from, then we get lots of ideas, but not much we can test, if I understood correctly.)
QUOTE(Nuu™™)
If you believe in 'micro-evolution', then you can't not believe in evolution as a whole. Micro-evolution, with enough isolation of populations and enough time, leads to new species.
That's reaching just a bit. Sane creationists (Guess it would help to admit I used to be one. I don't know what I am now. And yes, they do exist. Your religious beliefs don't define your sanity, in general.) accept "micro-evolution" because they don't have much choice. We hav evidence of adaptation and new species. Where they differ from (most) evolutionists is in where the species came from to start with.
There are actually quite a number of kinds of creationists. To name three:
- young-earth creationists - they take the bible literally, unless it's obviously meant to be figurative, and so get an age for the earth from the chronologies listed in different parts of the bible, an estimated generation length, and usually a couple thousand years for good measure. The fossil record was a result of a global flood.
- old-earth creationists (one version) - they believe the earth is as old as scientists have figured, but that God was displeased with things as they progressed up to there, so he destroyed everything (In what they call a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, aka Gap-theory) and created as he said in Genesis, which accounts for the fossil record.
- theistic evolutionists - God started things, but he used evolution to get to what we see today.
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*continued in next post*