God used Evolution to create man

[RichardParker]

Evolution is not observable,...

Yes it is.

...repeatable,...

Yes, it is.

...or refutable...

Yes, it is.

Evolution must be accepted with faith by its believers, many of whom deny the existence, or at least the power, of the Creator.

Aaaand again, everything wrong.
Most people who accept evolution actually are theists and it doesn't take any faith since we can prove every single element of evolution.

You cannot see evolution taking place.

Yes, we can. And we have. And we still are.

The Biblical account of creation is not observable, repeatable or refutable either.

I agree up to the "refutable" point.
Yes, creationism is refutable. And it has been refuted. Actually not only by evolution, but by many, many, many other scientific fields.

So yeah, evolution and creationism... not really comparible.
One has been tested over and over again, makes testable prediction, has practical application...
The other one is a story, internally inconsistend, and in contrary to everything we have learned about the real world through science.

 

[RichardParker]

Nice try but his birth was recorded, his parents existed, and his followers wrote down what they saw and what Jesus said.

There are no contemporary accounts about Jesus. The texts about his birth weren't writen by eye-witnesses, we don't even really know who wrote them.
They are also more writen in style of fables and stories. So no, we don't really have any reliable records about Jesus birth.
And his fallowers wrote down what they saw...?
How do you know? We still don't even know for sure who wrote the Gospels, and the earliest writings we have have been writen down at least 30 years after Jesus' apparently died! Over 30 years! By mostly annonymous authors!

We have better accounts of alien abductions today!
And you claim that we should expect that guy's life story based on hear-saying of annonymous authors?
Come on!

 

[Dizredux]

Evolution is not observable, repeatable, or refutable so it doesn't qualify as a scientific fact or theory. Evolution must be accepted with faith by its believers, many of whom deny the existence, or at least the power, of the Creator.

Lets look at this. I need to know what you mean by observable, repeatable and refutable. If you could let me know what you mean by these terms, we can discuss it.

Dizredux

 

[EternalDragon]

There are no contemporary accounts about Jesus. The texts about his birth weren't writen by eye-witnesses, we don't even really know who wrote them.
They are also more writen in style of fables and stories. So no, we don't really have any reliable records about Jesus birth.
And his fallowers wrote down what they saw...?
How do you know? We still don't even know for sure who wrote the Gospels, and the earliest writings we have have been writen down at least 30 years after Jesus' apparently died! Over 30 years! By mostly annonymous authors!

We have better accounts of alien abductions today!
And you claim that we should expect that guy's life story based on hear-saying of annonymous authors?
Come on!

You don't have to accept anything. Who said you did?

But let's go with that because you have actually accepted assumptions that man wrote down about how life came about. Without anyone even being there to see it. That is of course if what you mean by evolution goes beyond the mere "species changing characteristics to adapt to environment changes."

What you guys do is take a normal fact of nature (variety within species) and then turn it into a frog becoming a human prince and imagining you can find evidence for it.

 

[lasthero]

But let's go with that because you have actually accepted assumptions that man wrote down about how life came about. Without anyone even being there to see it.

ED, what exactly do you mean when you call something an 'assumption'?

 

[EternalDragon]

ED, what exactly do you mean when you call something an 'assumption'?

Not observed, testable or repeatable. Like so called evolution from one common ancestor. No one has seen the ancestor, no one has seen it evolve and no one can test if it could do so. Some scientists assume similarities must mean a population evolved into a totally new population of life. Then others assume this is stone cold fact.

 

[RichardParker]

You don't have to accept anything. Who said you did?

But let's go with that because you have actually accepted assumptions that man wrote down about how life came about.

Ohm...
What?
Did I just slip into another conversation?
No, I'm not aware of anybody who accepts assumptions about how life came about.
What I know of is, that there are models, that explains the phenomenon of life. And the scientists who are professionals in that field are currently looking for ways of either confirming these models or rejecting them. Because that's how science works.
At the moment, we have a number of models that can explain a lot about the origin of life, but we don't know which one, if any, is accurate. But we do know which one are at least possible and which one aren't. And these are things we don't know because we wrote them in a book that is claimed to have been writen by somebody who might have witnessed it... we accept these things because we can test and replicate them.
And you know what: As soon as you can provide repeatable evidence for a person getting born of a virgin, then we will take the biblical claims about Jesus' birth more seriously.
But unless you can provide a model, for which we can test if it is at least possible, the "accounts" for Jesus's births aren't really reasonable to accept.

Without anyone even being there to see it.

Waaaaait a second! Are you telling me that you believe that we can only know things, if we have directly witness it?
You might want to inform the cops about that, because they constantly arrest people, even if they have no eye-witnesses... and the courts constantly convict people based on "just" evidence, but without actually having anybody who saw it.
So, according to you, evidence isn't good enough, I assume.
We have to be able to travel to the past to confirm how something has happend, otherwise all options (like "this window broke, because somebody threw a rock through it" and "A dragon flew straight through that window") become equally valide?
I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that's pretty much what I have to conclude whenever I hear anybody say "Nobdody was there to see it, so we can't know!"

That is of course if what you mean by evolution goes beyond the mere "species changing characteristics to adapt to environment changes."

Animals can evolve, beyond the species bounderies.
THAT'S actually something we don't even need to extract from any indirect evidence, that's something we can directly observe and have observed.
So, very bad analogy there.

What you guys do is take a normal fact of nature (variety within species) and then turn it into a frog becoming a human prince and imagining you can find evidence for it.

No, I don't believe that frogs turn into princes. Magic is much more in the area of religious believes.
Like, can you imagine, there are actually people who believe that virgins can give birth to other people, even though all evidence points into another direction.

But no, what I actually believe (as most scientificly literate people do), is that all life shares a comon ancestory. This is accepted, because we:
-have the transitional fossils to support it
-comparitive anatomy mirrors the tree that is supported by the fossils
-genetics confirms these two other trees I've mentioned
-we can directly observe that evolution can lead to new features and species
-the geographical distribution of all species can only be explained by that process

So, yeah, it's a little bit different than:
"These three annonymous guys wrote down, about 2000 years in the past, that this and this has happend! We don't have primary sources, don't know the authors, and they make untestable, extraordinary claims... but yeah, it sounds credible to me!"

But maybe you don't see the difference.
Actually, it seems that you find "These guys said so..." more credible than the things we can actually observe.
Your world must look weird

 

[lasthero]

Not observed, testable or repeatable. Like so called evolution from one common ancestor. No one has seen the ancestor, no one has seen it evolve and no one can test if it could do so. Some scientists assume similarities must mean a population evolved into a totally new population of life. Then others assume this is stone cold fact.

Okay, see, this is part of the problem - that's not what an assumption is. You don't seem to understand the difference between an assumption and inference. Also, it's not just about similarities, but we keep showing you that and you keep ignoring, so we'll move on for now.

For example, the orbit of Pluto is about 248 years. No one has ever observed it making this orbit, since we haven't even known it existed that long. But we don't ASSUME that's how long it's orbit is. It's an inference. Do you understand the difference?

 

[EternalDragon]

Ohm...
What?
Did I just slip into another conversation?
No, I'm not aware of anybody who accepts assumptions about how life came about.
What I know of is, that there are models, that explains the phenomenon of life. And the scientists who are professionals in that field are currently looking for ways of either confirming these models or rejecting them. Because that's how science works.
At the moment, we have a number of models that can explain a lot about the origin of life, but we don't know which one, if any, is accurate. But we do know which one are at least possible and which one aren't. And these are things we don't know because we wrote them in a book that is claimed to have been writen by somebody who might have witnessed it... we accept these things because we can test and replicate them.
And you know what: As soon as you can provide repeatable evidence for a person getting born of a virgin, then we will take the biblical claims about Jesus' birth more seriously.
But unless you can provide a model, for which we can test if it is at least possible, the "accounts" for Jesus's births aren't really reasonable to accept.



Waaaaait a second! Are you telling me that you believe that we can only know things, if we have directly witness it?
You might want to inform the cops about that, because they constantly arrest people, even if they have no eye-witnesses... and the courts constantly convict people based on "just" evidence, but without actually having anybody who saw it.
So, according to you, evidence isn't good enough, I assume.
We have to be able to travel to the past to confirm how something has happend, otherwise all options (like "this window broke, because somebody threw a rock through it" and "A dragon flew straight through that window") become equally valide?
I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that's pretty much what I have to conclude whenever I hear anybody say "Nobdody was there to see it, so we can't know!"



Animals can evolve, beyond the species bounderies.
THAT'S actually something we don't even need to extract from any indirect evidence, that's something we can directly observe and have observed.
So, very bad analogy there.



No, I don't believe that frogs turn into princes. Magic is much more in the area of religious believes.
Like, can you imagine, there are actually people who believe that virgins can give birth to other people, even though all evidence points into another direction.

But no, what I actually believe (as most scientificly literate people do), is that all life shares a comon ancestory. This is accepted, because we:
-have the transitional fossils to support it
-comparitive anatomy mirrors the tree that is supported by the fossils
-genetics confirms these two other trees I've mentioned
-we can directly observe that evolution can lead to new features and species
-the geographical distribution of all species can only be explained by that process

So, yeah, it's a little bit different than:
"These three annonymous guys wrote down, about 2000 years in the past, that this and this has happend! We don't have primary sources, don't know the authors, and they make untestable, extraordinary claims... but yeah, it sounds credible to me!"

But maybe you don't see the difference.
Actually, it seems that you find "These guys said so..." more credible than the things we can actually observe.
Your world must look weird

I don't know why you guys keep using crime scenes and courts as an analogy. Police detectives often get things wrong, some make things up and verdicts are often reached by the emotions of the jury and often not by the evidence presented, per say. A lot of cases are solved by eyewitness testimony more so than by anything else.

You could probably confirm all that from anyone that has taken a criminal justice course (as I have).

It's a very, very poor comparison.

 

[Loudmouth]

Evolution is not observable, repeatable, or refutable so it doesn't qualify as a scientific fact or theory.

Yet another creationist who doesn't understand how the scientific method works.

Let's start with observable, shall we? In the scientific method, you use observations to test a hypothesis. Unfortunately, creationists misinterpret this to mean that you have to observe the hypothesis. This is incorrect. The hypothesis is never an observation. You use observations to TEST the hypothesis.

What needs to be repeatable? The observations, not the hypothesis.

What is the hypothesis/theory? Evolution.

What are the repeatable observations? Fossils, morphology of living species, biogeography, and the DNA sequence of genomes, to name a few. All of these observations meet the requirements of science, and they can and are used to test the theory of evolution.

Is the theory of evolution refutable, or falsifiable as it is more commonly phrased? Absolutely. Here are 29 potential falsifications for the theory of evolution:

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

Evolution must be accepted with faith by its believers, many of whom deny the existence, or at least the power, of the Creator.

We don't need faith. We have repeatable observations that support the theory of evolution:

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

Also, you have offered zero evidence for a creator deity, so there is nothing to deny. Your beliefs are not evidence. It is strange that you ignore the evidence supporting evolution, and then accept creationism without one iota of evidence.

You cannot see evolution taking place. You cannot say that "we are here, so it happened".

Forensic scientists do not witness the a murder, yet they can gather scientific evidence after the fact to test whether or not a suspect is guilty. Evolution is no different. There is evidence in the present that was created by events in the past, and we can use that evidence to test the theory of evolution. We can also observe living populations to test specific mechanisms, such as natural selection, speciation, and mutagenesis.

The Biblical account of creation is not observable, repeatable or refutable either. Both are belief systems and rely on faith.

False. As has already been shown, evolution is backed by repeatable observations, is testable, and is falsifiable.

 

[Loudmouth]

Nice try but his birth was recorded, his parents existed, and his followers wrote down what they saw and what Jesus said.

Stories are not records. You might as well claim that Harry Potter is real because there are stories written about him.

 

[lasthero]

I don't know why you guys keep using crime scenes and courts as an analogy. Police detectives often get things wrong, some make things up and verdicts are often reached by the emotions of the jury and often not by the evidence presented, per say. A lot of cases are solved by eyewitness testimony more so than by anything else.

You could probably confirm all that from anyone that has taken a criminal justice course (as I have).

Big whoop. I took a math class once, that doesn't make me a mathematician. Just because you took a criminal justice course doesn't mean you get to pass by and not provide evidence for your claim. So, please, present the evidence that cases are solved by eyewitness testimony more often than not. Because I can provide a variety of sources that say different.

First, let's start with the Wikipedia page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyewitness_testimony

Eyewitness testimony is the account a bystander gives in the courtroom, describing what that person observed that occurred during the specific incident under investigation. Ideally this recollection of events is detailed, however this is not always the case. This recollection is used as evidence to show what happened from a witness' point of view. Memory recall has been considered a credible source in the past, but has recently come under attack as forensics can now support psychologists in their claim that memories and individual perceptions are unreliable; being easily manipulated, altered, and biased. Due to this, many countries and states within the USA are now attempting to make changes in how eyewitness testimony is presented in court. Eyewitness testimony is a specialized focus within forensic psychology.

Here's the American Psychological Association on the subject.

Eyewitness testimony

The Innocence Project, which handles many cases where eyewitness testimony has put the wrong people in jail.

The Innocence Project - Understand the Causes: Eyewitness Misidentification

This last one is especially interesting. You'll find many cases in which eyewitness testimony was shown to be false through forensic techniques.

Here's a talk on it by a professor of psychology and a professor of law.

The Problem With Eyewitness Testimony

Do you want me to get more? Because I just barely looked. Eyewitness testimony is not reliable. People do not have perfect memories.

 

[Loudmouth]

I don't know why you guys keep using crime scenes and courts as an analogy.

It is an example of using repeatable observations to reconstruct the past.

Police detectives often get things wrong, some make things up and verdicts are often reached by the emotions of the jury and often not by the evidence presented, per say. A lot of cases are solved by eyewitness testimony more so than by anything else.

There are many cases where eyewitness testimony is ignore because of forensic evidence. In the words of Dr. House, people lie. Facts don't.

Or are you saying that we should free everyone who was convicted on the strength of forensic evidence? It is quite hilarious to see creationists ask for evidence, and then complain that evidence is used.

 

[Loudmouth]

Not observed, testable or repeatable. Like so called evolution from one common ancestor. No one has seen the ancestor, no one has seen it evolve and no one can test if it could do so.

Common ancestry is the hypothesis. You don't observe the hypothesis. That is not how the scientific method works.

Some scientists assume similarities must mean a population evolved into a totally new population of life. Then others assume this is stone cold fact.

False. We use the repeatable observations of shared and derived features to test for a nested hierarchy, which is how we test the theory of evolution. Now you are complaining that we use repeatable observations to test the falsifiable theory of evolution. You are complaining that we use the scientific method. How pathetic.

 

[AV1611VET]

Common ancestry is the hypothesis. You don't observe the hypothesis. That is not how the scientific method works.



False. We use the repeatable observations of shared and derived features to test for a nested hierarchy, which is how we test the theory of evolution. Now you are complaining that we use repeatable observations to test the falsifiable theory of evolution. You are complaining that we use the scientific method. How pathetic.

With all that observing going on, how is it they miss such things as shape-shifting dinosaurs?

Maybe they're just trying to make Linnaeus look bad?

 

[RichardParker]

I don't know why you guys keep using crime scenes and courts as an analogy. Police detectives often get things wrong, some make things up and verdicts are often reached by the emotions of the jury and often not by the evidence presented, per say.

So what?
Who said that the system was perfect?
BUT we still use it! Why? Because what you describe here is mainly a problem with the people misunsing the system and making mistakes!
But you are honstly trying to make the case, that we shouldn't use evidence anymore? Only convictions with eye-witness accounts?
Ok...
I'm thankfull then that you aren't in charge of our legal system then

A lot of cases are solved by eyewitness testimony more so than by anything else.

Eye witness accounts are demonstrable the least reliable kind of evidence there is!
And if we have only eye-witness accounts from some annonymous dudes, that speak about magical things... then be asured, this won't be used to convict anybody!
On the other hand, if genetics shows, that the DNA that was found shows that there was a person who was related to the victim at the crime scene... then you can be sure, that they will go and look in the among the family members for a suspect! Even if they don't have any eye witness, because genetics is BETTER than eye-witness accounts!
Which makes evolution superior to eye-witness accounts, because genetics WORKS!

You could probably confirm all that from anyone that has taken a criminal justice course (as I have).

It's a very, very poor comparison.

Honest to god, you have taken a criminal justice course... and you don't understand how important evidence is to determine what has happend in the past, and you don't know how unreliable eye-witness accounts are?

This scares me.

 

[RichardParker]

With all that observing going on, how is it they miss such things as shape-shifting dinosaurs?

Maybe they're just trying to make Linnaeus look bad?

"Shape shifting dinosaurs"?!
What the heck are you talking about?

 

[AV1611VET]

Which makes evolution superior to eye-witness accounts, because genetics WORKS!

Is that why it took years to expose Nebraska Man? the superiority to eye-witness accounts?

 

[AV1611VET]

"Shape shifting dinosaurs"?!
What the heck are you talking about?

Superior observation.

(Or do they somehow escape scientists' 20/10 vision?)

 

[lasthero]

Is that why it took years to expose Nebraska Man? the superiority to eye-witness accounts?

Not a good example. Even when Nebraska Man was first 'discovered', the scientific community almost unanimously rejected it. You won't find any work on it, no studies, no papers, no anything. Pretty much the only people who ever took it seriously were the guys who discovered it, and even they admitted it was a bit of a leap.