Juvenal
Radical strawberry
First i'll define what evolution i'm talking about. I'm talking about the theory that man evolved from bacteria over a slow, gradual process. I'm not arguing the FACT that there are slow biological changes over time.
If folks will pardon my late arrival, I'd like to be sure I'm still tracking with the o/p.
You always want to stick with agreed-upon definitions, but this one is troublesome. There's evolution, which we all agree occurs, and the theory of evolution, which encompasses both the processes by which evolution occurs, and the tentative conclusions, or not-so-tentatitive conclusions that arise from examining those processes.
So when we ask if evolution is even a theory, the immediate answer is obviously not. Evolution is a fact. But there is also a robust theory of evolution which we can charitably grant was the intended topic of the o/p.
That theory includes hypotheses of greater or lesser certainty, some of which are sufficiently outré to be considered "not even wrong," following the exasperated expression attributed to Pauli. Those portions could be considered "not even a theory" of evolution.
But one of the not-so-tentative conclusions of the theory of evolution is universal common descent. One of the consequences of universal common descent is that our species also descended from universal common ancestors. And that, if I'm reading the o/p correctly, is the theory of the evolution of man from single-celled organisms the o/p would like to examine.
It should be noted that this restriction would probably be considered grossly inappropriate by most biologists, but as I'm not a biologist ...
(from wikipedia) A scientific theory...
1. is consistent with pre-existing theory to the extent that the pre-existing theory was experimentally verified, though it will often show pre-existing theory to be wrong in an exact sense,
i can admit the wording of this confuses me, maybe it's too late at night. maybe you can just explain how evolution fits this.
The modern theory of the evolution of man includes evolution by natural selection, as posited by Darwin himself, while explicitly contradicting his theory of blended inheritance in favor of Mendelian inheritance.
2. is supported by many strands of evidence rather than a single foundation, ensuring that it probably is a good approximation if not totally correct,
not really supported by many strands of evidence. ie geology and astronomy are often said to coincide with evolution, but evidence for the age of the earth and universe is not evidence for evolution. the best evidence is the fossil record, which has some holes, and inconsistencies as well.
Fossil evidence was indeed the best evidence for the evolution of our species from non-human species, at one time. But it has more recently been displaced since the mapping of the human genome allowed us to examine the affinities between our chromosomes and those of our closest primate relatives. Two chimp chromosomes, for example, have been renamed in acknowledgement that our chromosome 2 resulted from their fusion.
3. has survived many critical real world tests that could have proven it false,
like what? in a theory that is supposed to have happened over billions of years what possible way could it be tested?
As suggested above, geology and astronomy could have shown there was insufficient time for the evolution of humans to occur.
4. makes predictions that might someday be used to disprove the theory,
the only thing that would falsify evolution, as per a thread i started a while back, is the fossil record not supporting it. the fossil record doesn't outright contradict it, but at the same time there is no STRONG evidence from it (What does the fossil record teach us about Evolution? - ChristianAnswers.Net)
The o/p seems to be slipping back and forth between the evolution of humans and the more general theory of evolution. Most of the fossil record is of species that are not ancestral to humans. Neither does the suggested criticism of the fossil record relate to "predictions that might ... disprove the theory."
Leaving aside more direct criticisms, it should also be noted that contrary to the chosen name of the linked website, it provides no answers for the majority of Christians. Since the inception of modern polling, it has always been the case that most Christians accept the theory of evolution, though they prefer to believe that evolution was somehow guided by their God.
5. is tentative, correctable and dynamic, in allowing for changes to be made as new data is discovered, rather than asserting certainty, and
yes, evolution fits this, at least enough not to argue about it
Bravo.
As others in this thread have already noted, more obliquely perhaps, the independent creation of species without the advantage of evolutionary processes is neither predictive nor explanatory. To wit, it fails to predict the emergence of new species. To wit, it fails to explain the extinction of ancestral species.6. is the most parsimonious explanation, sparing in proposed entities or explanations, commonly referred to as passing Occam's Razor.
i feel we should quote occam's razor:
Given two equally predictive theories, choose the simpler.
For example, a charred tree could be caused by a lightning strike or by someone who used a machine to burn the upper branches of a tree and then replanted the grass leading up to the tree to hide the machine's tracks. According to Occam's Razor, the lightning strike is the preferred explanation as it requires the fewest assumptions. (wikipedia)
so creation, a simple idea, is overthrown by the complex, mathmatically improbable, and increasingly complex theory of evolution. hmm...
Each of these events, multiply attested in the fossil record, are adequately predicted and explained by modern evolutionary theory.
That includes the theory of human evolution, from which we predict that our species will likewise become extinct, displaced by species better fit to our ever-evolving environment.
if i'm wrong on that maybe you could remind me what the chances are of the right changes taking place millions of times in a row to get from pondscum to homosapien.
And to the last, while I make no pretensions to being a biologist, I am qualified to sit on committees minting new PhDs in mathematics, and as such, I can assure you that the probability for any event which has already occurred is exactly one.
Conversely, the probability of any event far in the future, itself the consequence of myriad random events, is infinitesimal. Yet events far in the future will certainly occur, barring the end of time itself.
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