I think the reason people do not accept "maroeveolution" is because of the way it is presented. Here we have 50 references to texts not available for our general review, and a refusal to explain what each of those texgts actually says that would support macroeveoltionary theory. Then a simple repetition that there is all this proof and therefore no one could possibly disagree.
Why don't you try boiling it down a bit and explaining it?
I talked this stuff over with a friend of mine on a different site. He is a microbiologist. He explained a lot to me, but fundamentally, the difference between arguments like is the earth round and whether or not evolution is the origin of all the species is that while it is a simple thing now to verify the earth's shape, it is impossible to go back in time and verify the vatrious theories on exactly how speciation could have formed all the species we see. It simply cannot be confirmed or falsified, therefore people don't readily believe it. Frankly, even scientists were at first rather skeptical because, after all, it is rather counterintuitive. Much as people were expecting to see a vast and more or less homogenous universe, and Einstein felt the need at one time to alter his calculations to conform with this view, so too do a lot of people find the idea that the plethora of species and variety of life that we see today all eveolved from single cell organizms, and probably one or at the most several of one type of organism, seems a mighty stretch.
I have pretty much given up on ever having another serious conversation on this subject. The very pretense that one does not understand why people object to the thought of macroevolution, or that there is a direct correleation between observable, measureable quantities like the shape of the earth and speculation about the past is absurd on its face. People who believe in God do so because of a combination of observation of their own inner self, the realization that this ability to know and to act may extend outside the self, and the evidence they see in life around them that perhaps there is a greater being out there, causes them to draw this conclusion. I have yet to see a serious approach to this fundamental question in life from an atheist. Even the few I have met who will discuss the naturalistic explanations for consciousness seem to be oblivious to the fact that they are every bit as perilous as the theistic ones as far as having some sort of magic or fiat acceptance by faith of a rather absurd seeming final conclision.
That's life though. I hate to quote Star Trek, (Ok I lie. I love to quote Star Trek!) but when all else has been eliminated, what remains, however unlikely, must be the explanaion. So, you either have a God, or gods, or not, but fundamentally you are stuck with the concept of consciousness and purpose. That, at least, we know exists. The probablities involved in whether or not it is more or less likely that there is a powerfull conscious force that created life or if indeed all life and its diversity developed by mechanistic means seem to me to be impossible to even approach, so I am not even sure why so many people find this discussion worth having at all. The fossil record and the tenuous explantions about all of the past, the creation of the universe, and everything else are only usefull inasmuch as they tend to explain the universe in mechanistic terms, and yet there really is no confirming or falsifying the concept. They have one general idea: that the universe could be mechanistic. So then they comb the data for things that support this theory, and set aside all else, even the constant daily eperience of our own concious choices. And you wonder why I find this less than convincing?
Why don't you try boiling it down a bit and explaining it?
I talked this stuff over with a friend of mine on a different site. He is a microbiologist. He explained a lot to me, but fundamentally, the difference between arguments like is the earth round and whether or not evolution is the origin of all the species is that while it is a simple thing now to verify the earth's shape, it is impossible to go back in time and verify the vatrious theories on exactly how speciation could have formed all the species we see. It simply cannot be confirmed or falsified, therefore people don't readily believe it. Frankly, even scientists were at first rather skeptical because, after all, it is rather counterintuitive. Much as people were expecting to see a vast and more or less homogenous universe, and Einstein felt the need at one time to alter his calculations to conform with this view, so too do a lot of people find the idea that the plethora of species and variety of life that we see today all eveolved from single cell organizms, and probably one or at the most several of one type of organism, seems a mighty stretch.
I have pretty much given up on ever having another serious conversation on this subject. The very pretense that one does not understand why people object to the thought of macroevolution, or that there is a direct correleation between observable, measureable quantities like the shape of the earth and speculation about the past is absurd on its face. People who believe in God do so because of a combination of observation of their own inner self, the realization that this ability to know and to act may extend outside the self, and the evidence they see in life around them that perhaps there is a greater being out there, causes them to draw this conclusion. I have yet to see a serious approach to this fundamental question in life from an atheist. Even the few I have met who will discuss the naturalistic explanations for consciousness seem to be oblivious to the fact that they are every bit as perilous as the theistic ones as far as having some sort of magic or fiat acceptance by faith of a rather absurd seeming final conclision.
That's life though. I hate to quote Star Trek, (Ok I lie. I love to quote Star Trek!) but when all else has been eliminated, what remains, however unlikely, must be the explanaion. So, you either have a God, or gods, or not, but fundamentally you are stuck with the concept of consciousness and purpose. That, at least, we know exists. The probablities involved in whether or not it is more or less likely that there is a powerfull conscious force that created life or if indeed all life and its diversity developed by mechanistic means seem to me to be impossible to even approach, so I am not even sure why so many people find this discussion worth having at all. The fossil record and the tenuous explantions about all of the past, the creation of the universe, and everything else are only usefull inasmuch as they tend to explain the universe in mechanistic terms, and yet there really is no confirming or falsifying the concept. They have one general idea: that the universe could be mechanistic. So then they comb the data for things that support this theory, and set aside all else, even the constant daily eperience of our own concious choices. And you wonder why I find this less than convincing?
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That's not Star Trek, that's Arthur Conan Doyle thru his character Sherlock Holmes.
........... now you sound like FOC
