Science Doubter Question

SharonC · June 2007

chopitdown wrote:

this is true...but it's not infallible either...it very well could be the best theory we have now but that doesn't mean that it is correct in every way.

Agreed. The fact that it is testable and falsifiable is what makes it good science. However, there is more evidence to support evolution than you might think. While we can't (because of the time scale) observe macroevolution taking place, we see microevolution taking place all the time. Our understanding of it may not be completely correct in every way, but most real debate in the actual scientific community at this point is related to how it occurs rather than whether it occurs.

"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution"
- Theodosius Dobzhansky

chopitdown · June 2007

SharonC wrote:

Agreed. The fact that it is testable and falsifiable is what makes it good science. However, there is more evidence to support evolution than you might think. While we can't (because of the time scale) observe macroevolution taking place, we see microevolution taking place all the time. Our understanding of it may not be completely correct in every way, but most real debate in the actual scientific community at this point is related to how it occurs rather than whether it occurs.

"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution"
- Theodosius Dobzhansky

I realize there is plenty of evidence to support some portions of evolution, no doubt. I agree the how it occurs is important to study and should be studied. Who knows, science may find continue to find that microevolution takes place but in reality macroevolution is nearly impossible, thus modifying the whether it occurs assumption that science operates upon.

SharonC · June 2007

chopitdown wrote:

I realize there is plenty of evidence to support some portions of evolution, no doubt. I agree the how it occurs is important to study and should be studied. Who knows, science may find continue to find that microevolution takes place but in reality macroevolution is nearly impossible, thus modifying the whether it occurs assumption that science operates upon.

I think it's pretty unlikely that we'll ever conclude that macroevolution is nearly impossible. It's not just an extension of the idea of microevolution. There is lots of evidence to support it as well.

Did you ever notice that there are no scientists debating the existence of evolution, except those who have a religious agenda?

Ahnimus · June 2007

ForestBrain wrote:

I don't believe in evolution for a few reasons:
Number one, according to evolution and the age of the earth, the Atlantic ocean should have completely consumed the entire earth by now.
Two: I cannot fathom a single cell can evolve in to the extremely complex brain we humans possess.
Three: If evolution were real (and having the history of the way people looked over 2,000 years ago) humans would have physically evolved by now.
Four: The earth cannot sustain itself for billions of years.
.
.
And more personal reasons:
1. It's a good excuse to avoid the truth.
2. If I come from a monkey, then life has lost all art and I don't want anything to do with it.
3. It makes no sense.
4. It's just people who don't want to believe that there is a God and are trying desperately to prove it. And they can't.
Evolution is a theory. Not a fact.
The teachings in the Bible coincide more with science than does evolution.
Now, I know a lot of you don't believe that there is a God. But please, instead of name-calling and stuff like that, just write a list of reasons why not to believe there is a God and how he couldn't have possibly created the earth.

I'll give you one reason. What I see with my own eyes. What everyone sees with their visual striate cortex actually, then it's recoded and sent elsewhere in the brain, probably the frontal lobe (Crick and Koch).

What everyone sees is cause and effect. They see people throwing balls and they can predict when a pitcher winds up that he is going to throw the ball. The ball is going to travel towards the batter and he will either pass on it if he predicts it will be a ball, or swing at it if he predicts he will hit it. We constantly predict what will happen in the future and we accurately do so. Cause and effect is the nature of the universe. All of science is causal. The human body and mind are causal. There is no possible way we have free-will or any authorship over our fate at all. Split-brain patients may have half of their brain that believes in God and the other half doesn't (V.S. Ramachandran).

What is God? God is not caused, God is the first cause. How can we fathom that? How can we comprehend something that does not have a cause, cannot be measured and depends on speculation? Speculation that has no consistency. It's badly formulated and offers no prophetic quality. I'm agnostic to Spinoza's God, but I am an atheist to Abraham's God.

Scubascott · June 2007

ForestBrain wrote:

I don't believe in evolution for a few reasons:
Number one, according to evolution and the age of the earth, the Atlantic ocean should have completely consumed the entire earth by now.
Two: I cannot fathom a single cell can evolve in to the extremely complex brain we humans possess.
Three: If evolution were real (and having the history of the way people looked over 2,000 years ago) humans would have physically evolved by now.
Four: The earth cannot sustain itself for billions of years.
.
.
And more personal reasons:
1. It's a good excuse to avoid the truth.
2. If I come from a monkey, then life has lost all art and I don't want anything to do with it.
3. It makes no sense.
4. It's just people who don't want to believe that there is a God and are trying desperately to prove it. And they can't.
Evolution is a theory. Not a fact.
The teachings in the Bible coincide more with science than does evolution.
Now, I know a lot of you don't believe that there is a God. But please, instead of name-calling and stuff like that, just write a list of reasons why not to believe there is a God and how he couldn't have possibly created the earth.

Wow. I'm not sure if I even know how to begin to respond to this.

One: The atlantic ocean should have covered the earth? What? Can you please provide your reference? I'd like to read it.

Two: Just because something is difficult to understand does not not make it unlikely to be true.

Three: Evolutionary theory does not predict that humans would change significantly over a 2,000 year period. 2,000 years is a very small timeframe for evolutionary change in a organism with a relatively long lifespan like humans. Its only 100 or so generations.

Four: Why not?

And your personal reasons:

1. What 'truth' are we avoiding?

2. A monkey is a wonderfully complex piece of biological machinery, just like a human, an insect, a plant, a mushroom or a bacterium. Learn some biology and you will see that all forms of life are worthy of wonder, and we humans are really not so different from everything else.

3. What specific aspect of evolutionary theory makes no sense to you? Have you made any attempt to remedy your lack of understanding? Ask questions if you don't understand something. There are several people on this very forum (myself included) who have spent considerable amounts of time working in this area. They can explain the concepts to you if you ask.

4. Darwin himself struggled for many years to reconcile his belief in a creator with his ideas about evolution. It was the evidence that he saw before him that made him rethink his religious teachings. He did not develop the theory as a way to justify his refusal to believe in a creator. In any case, there is nothing about evolutionary theory that explicity suggests that a creator can not exist. The only problem with it from a christian theological perspective is that it does not agree with a strictly literal interpretaion of the bible. So what? Many aspects of our modern day lives don't agree with a stricly literal interpretation of religious texts that were written thousands of years ago by people from another time and a another culture, who spoke different languages. This is hardly surprising.

SharonC · June 2007

Scubascott wrote:

4. Darwin himself struggled for many years to reconcile his belief in a creator with his ideas about evolution. It was the evidence that he saw before him that made him rethink his religious teachings. He did not develop the theory as a way to justify his refusal to believe in a creator. In any case, there is nothing about evolutionary theory that explicity suggests that a creator can not exist. The only problem with it from a christian theological perspective is that it does not agree with a strictly literal interpretaion of the bible. So what? Many aspects of our modern day lives don't agree with a stricly literal interpretation of religious texts that were written thousands of years ago by people from another time and a another culture, who spoke different languages. This is hardly surprising.

This is an excellent point!!

If you all don't mind a minor hijack, I'm curious what your research interest is Scubascott.

Scubascott · June 2007

SharonC wrote:

This is an excellent point!!

If you all don't mind a minor hijack, I'm curious what your research interest is Scubascott.

I'm working on the bacterial ecology of corals, particularly diseased corals. Its extremely frustrating. . .

ClimberInOz · June 2007

chopitdown wrote:

Who knows, science may find continue to find that microevolution takes place but in reality macroevolution is nearly impossible, thus modifying the whether it occurs assumption that science operates upon.

Once you demonstrate microevolution you have got very good evidence for macroevolution. Throw in some basic concepts of geology, as shown below, and microevolution turns into macroevolution.

Step 1) Take 1 species undergoing microevolutionary processes.
Step 2) Geological events cause a barrier that divides the species into 2 groups, and restricts interbredding between the two different groups of the still same species.
Step 3) Over time, the selection pressures acting on the microevolutionary processes change a little between the two groups. So now you have 2 groups of a species undergoing microevolution in different directions, with each group unable to effectively share their genes with the other group.
Step 4) Add a short period of geological time (in other words, a large amount of time from our perspective) and your two groups become so distinct from one another that they are no capable of interbreeding. Thus macroevolution has taken place.

Collin · June 2007

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html

Kann · June 2007

SharonC wrote:

Kann, I think it could be the reverse. There are benefits and applications of evolutionary theory, but I think people make themselves less aware of these applications because they don't want to accept evolutionary theory.

Here are some good places to start.....

http://www.bscs.org/library/EvolutionaryScience_Part4.pdf
http://www.bscs.org/library/EvolutionaryScience_Part5.pdf

These are both sections from a publication of a symposium titled Evolutionary Science and Society: Educating a New Generation, which was held by the American Institute of Biological Science together with the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study for the National Association of Biology Teachers annual meeting in 2004. You can read more about the symposium and access the whole publication here: http://www.aibs.org/special-symposia/2004.html

This one looks excellent too, but it's not available free: http://www.aibs.org/bookstore/evolution_why_bother.html

I have to admit I did not read the whole text of the files above, but from the look of it, it seems evolution does not offer a daily common benefit, at least benefits know from the large public. A majority of people (this is an opinion I didn't do a survey on that) have misconceptions on evolution such as "only the strong survive" and "we descend from monkeys".
Wether these misconceptions are due to a long history of refusing and negating that theory (the monkey part is the thing for which evolutionnary adepts have always been criticized) or a lack of correctly teaching evolution in school I don't know.
Until there is correct and strong communication on viable applications due to evolution people will still view it as the strange idea that would give us monkeys for grandfathers.

know1 · June 2007

RolandTD20Kdrummer wrote:

Your entire answer can probably be summed up as bolded...

As can the entire argument against God ("I can't fathom")

Kann · June 2007

know1 wrote:

As can the entire argument against God ("I can't fathom")

Believing in God is in no way a reason to not understand evolution.

know1 · June 2007

Kann wrote:

Believing in God is in no way a reason to not understand evolution.

Agreed.

godpt3 · June 2007

ForestBrain wrote:

4. It's just people who don't want to believe that there is a God and are trying desperately to prove it. And they can't.
Evolution is a theory. Not a fact.

somebody needs to go back to grade school science class! Yes, evolution is a theory. It makes predictions based on observations. Creationism doesn't meet that test. It can't. There are no experiments to be done to prove God exists. Therefore creationism has ZERO place in a science classroom. If you want to teach that crap, take it to philosophy, history or literature. The bible is an important part of history, at best, and a really lousy piece of fiction, at worst. But, please, keep that shit out of the science textbooks where it has no place.

You're getting tripped up by a curb one-inch high.

Read it! And learn something.
http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=000D4FEC-7D5B-1D07-8E49809EC588EEDF

baraka · June 2007

Kann wrote:

Believing in God is in no way a reason to not understand evolution.

I agree and I think this is what it comes down to, Kann. One may believe in a creator, as they see fit, since, science says nothing either for or against one. But, to me, the choice to believe evolution is not as easy. If you choose to disbelieve evolution, you choose to disbelieve in the scientific method, and the majority of the biological study done in the last century, even the most basic results that you can reproduce yourself, in front of your own eyes, with a jar of fruit flies. Evolution is a scientific process that is observed to occur. Many object to it because it seems to contradict the Biblical version of creation. But there is a problem: all the evidence we have points to evolution being true.

This site might have already been posted here, but here is a good link for the non-biologists to read up on evolution http://www.talkorigins.org/

baraka · June 2007

SharonC wrote:

Our understanding of it may not be completely correct in every way, but most real debate in the actual scientific community at this point is related to how it occurs rather than whether it occurs.

I think this is a good point, SharonC and maybe where some of the confusion stems for a few. There have been various modifications to the theory of evolution, but most of the principles have remained intact, e.g., Darwin proposed natural selection, but he didn't have an understanding of how inheritance and the appearance of new traits work (i.e., genetics). Evolution, in of itself, is not in dispute, but there is plenty of debate about mechanisms. For example, Gould & Dawkins have different approaches. You'll find that some people propose that evolution is generally a uniform, gradual process, while others propose that much of evolution happens in relatively sudden spurts. Or, if you read the writings of Kauffman, he proposes that natural selection is overrated, and that some features of the genome can be explained by means of self-organization, in the absence of any kind of selective pressure.

SharonC · June 2007

Scubascott wrote:

I'm working on the bacterial ecology of corals, particularly diseased corals. Its extremely frustrating. . .

Sounds interesting (...in a frustrating sort of way

). I work on behavioral endocrinology in fish.

SharonC · June 2007

Kann wrote:

I have to admit I did not read the whole text of the files above, but from the look of it, it seems evolution does not offer a daily common benefit, at least benefits know from the large public. A majority of people (this is an opinion I didn't do a survey on that) have misconceptions on evolution such as "only the strong survive" and "we descend from monkeys".
Wether these misconceptions are due to a long history of refusing and negating that theory (the monkey part is the thing for which evolutionnary adepts have always been criticized) or a lack of correctly teaching evolution in school I don't know.
Until there is correct and strong communication on viable applications due to evolution people will still view it as the strange idea that would give us monkeys for grandfathers.

This is kind of my point. It's not that understanding evolution doesn't have benefits, it's that because of their biases the general public remains (perhaps deliberately) unaware of them. That doesn't mean they aren't important benefits.

I think misconceptions come from both of these things you mentioned; refusal to accept evolutionary theory, and lack of correct instruction in school. Many, many science teachers have had minimal exposure to evolution, refuse to accept it, and because of that refusal don't bother to understand it. Those teachers pass that ignorance of evolution and all of the misconceptions that go with it on to their students.

SharonC · June 2007

baraka wrote:

I think this is a good point, SharonC and maybe where some of the confusion stems for a few. There have been various modifications to the theory of evolution, but most of the principles have remained intact, e.g., Darwin proposed natural selection, but he didn't have an understanding of how inheritance and the appearance of new traits work (i.e., genetics). Evolution, in of itself, is not in dispute, but there is plenty of debate about mechanisms. For example, Gould & Dawkins have different approaches. You'll find that some people propose that evolution is generally a uniform, gradual process, while others propose that much of evolution happens in relatively sudden spurts. Or, if you read the writings of Kauffman, he proposes that natural selection is overrated, and that some features of the genome can be explained by means of self-organization, in the absence of any kind of selective pressure.

Very true. And I think when the public sees debate over this sort of thing (which can get heated), they get the impression that scientists disagree on the occurrence of evolution, when in fact, that's not the case.

Mookie Baylock · June 2007

ForestBrain wrote:

I don't believe in evolution for a few reasons:
Number one, according to evolution and the age of the earth, the Atlantic ocean should have completely consumed the entire earth by now.
Two: I cannot fathom a single cell can evolve in to the extremely complex brain we humans possess.
Three: If evolution were real (and having the history of the way people looked over 2,000 years ago) humans would have physically evolved by now.
Four: The earth cannot sustain itself for billions of years.
.
.
And more personal reasons:
1. It's a good excuse to avoid the truth.
2. If I come from a monkey, then life has lost all art and I don't want anything to do with it.
3. It makes no sense.
4. It's just people who don't want to believe that there is a God and are trying desperately to prove it. And they can't.
Evolution is a theory. Not a fact.
The teachings in the Bible coincide more with science than does evolution.
Now, I know a lot of you don't believe that there is a God. But please, instead of name-calling and stuff like that, just write a list of reasons why not to believe there is a God and how he couldn't have possibly created the earth.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you don't have any understanding of how evolution works, you have no place disputing it. You're arguement just makes you look silly.

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