People are Not Animals!

[Mallon]

Indeed. There's a reason why YECs actually trained in evolutionary biology (e.g., Marcus Ross, Kurt Wise) recognize evolution as a coherent model. Because it is.

 

[juvenissun]

But it is NOT 50%, that is what I am saying. The fact that there are two theories does not mean there are two *equally supported* theories! The evidence is dramatically overwhelming, entirely contrary to your post I quoted.

Really, go read that article, then we can talk. Even if you don't buy it, you will have the benefit if knowing what evolution is really all about, and what evidence supports it, which would be a huge improvement, even if you wanted to argue against it.

Yes, it is not 50%. It may be 25% evidence and these evidence would generate 75% more questions.

For example, in the article, it said:
"How does one account for all of this incredible diversity? The answer that scientists have come to, and have since reinforced with each new discovery, is that all of this variety is the outcome of evolutionary processes."

This is a very stupid argument. Even we take the argument, it does not take a genius to throw out a quick question: How about some of them are evolved, and some of them are not? How do you know that ALL of them are evolved? Basically, it is a non-defendable statement. Do you want to hear more questions about this statement? I can easily give another 3 of them. That makes this one "evidence" generate four questions.

I don't really have the patience to examine the paper. It does not worth my time. I know what evolution is. It is just an idea with many questionable evidences.

 

[juvenissun]

How do we get to 50% evidences, 50% questions?

Last year alone in the three major international journals on biology (out of several hundred peer reviewed journals and conferences) there were over a hundred papers containing evidence confirming of evolution.

And do you suggest that any or all these papers provided solid solutions to the problem investigated? That is a non-sense. It only cheats people who never know what a scientific article really is.

You give me one such paper, I can give you back a few unsolved problems related to the very issue the paper addressed.

50/50 is a humble and polite estimation. it could be: Evidence: 10% versus Problem (old and new): 90%. Any researcher can certainly enjoy that 1% or less new discovery (that is what all those "conventions" for) and not to think about the remaining huge amount of unanswered questions.

Evolution, concluded by such quality of studies, is true? No way.
A "coherent model" as said by Mallon? May be. But it is an unchallenged model. Coherent or not is hard to evaluate. Creationism, within its domain, is pretty coherent too.

 

[Mallon]

I know what evolution is.

Just a few weeks ago, you admitted to knowing virtually nothing about evolution. So which is it? Should we really trust your ability to delineate coherency among competing explanations for biodiversity, given, well... you know...?

 

[Scotishfury09]

You give me one such paper, I can give you back a few unsolved problems related to the very issue the paper addressed.

Egg Size Evolution in Tropical American Arcid Bivalves: The Comparative Method and the Fossil Record

I assume you can access JSTOR articles through your school. If not I don't think I can do anything else. The PDF file would be too large to attach.

 

[Mallon]

Don't waste your time, Scotishfury. As juvie said above:

I don't really have the patience to examine the paper.

This is his usual response when directed to relevant scientific literature.

 

[Scotishfury09]

Don't waste your time, Scotishfury. As juvie said above:

This is his usual response when directed to relevant scientific literature.

I guess I missed that post. Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll really read it.

 

[Mallon]

If you don't have access to the paper, juvenissun, I can email it to you.

 

[juvenissun]

Egg Size Evolution in Tropical American Arcid Bivalves: The Comparative Method and the Fossil Record

I assume you can access JSTOR articles through your school. If not I don't think I can do anything else. The PDF file would be too large to attach.

I got it. It is by Amy Moran in 2004

What do you want me to do with it?

If I spend time on it (it is not my field), I want to know that I would be some help to someone. How did you come with this particular article? Does the content mean anything to you? What kind of thought or report do you like me to give?

 

[sago]

And do you suggest that any or all these papers provided solid solutions to the problem investigated? That is a non-sense. It only cheats people who never know what a scientific article really is.

You give me one such paper, I can give you back a few unsolved problems related to the very issue the paper addressed.

50/50 is a humble and polite estimation. it could be: Evidence: 10% versus Problem (old and new): 90%. Any researcher can certainly enjoy that 1% or less new discovery (that is what all those "conventions" for) and not to think about the remaining huge amount of unanswered questions.

Evolution, concluded by such quality of studies, is true? No way.
A "coherent model" as said by Mallon? May be. But it is an unchallenged model. Coherent or not is hard to evaluate. Creationism, within its domain, is pretty coherent too.

You really think like that? Talk about willfully missing the point!

Everything raises new questions, as I said specifically in my post.

What is disingenuous is to insinuate that they are problems with evolution. They simply aren't. The evidence is overwhelming that the basic mechanism of evolution is true. In fact it is so overwhelming that, if evolution were to be disproved, we can be very confident that the theory that supplanted it would look just like evolution in most cases (just as Relativity reduces to Newtonian dynamics in most cases). The chance of evolution being shown to be fundamentally wrong is as near to nil as makes no odds. Akin to someone showing that the earth is actually flat after all.

The problems in evolutionary theory aren't with the theory itself. They arise with specific species (is its nearest common ancestor with species B, X or Y?) or specific fossil finds (is this portion of a fossil best classified in group A or B), or specific DNA sequences (this portion seems to be intronic, but has survived better than we would expect, did it code for something in the past)... and so on ...

The claim that these genuine problems are problems with evolutionary theory (as opposed to problems in evolutionary science) is a plain old lie.

For example, my PhD research was in genetic regulatory network dynamics. I solved an important problem (on the mathematical limits of modularity in the network). My research raised a million more questions that I didn't have time to address.

None of those problems could in any way be construed as problems with evolution. In fact quite the opposite, a large proportion of the results I found (particularly around so-called 'genes-in-pieces') were directly and quantitatively predicted by an evolutionary model.

To be entirely frank, it would have been better for me if they weren't. If I had found something that couldn't be explained by current evolutionary theory, I could have made my career right there and then. Competition for top academic jobs is very tough, and being able to take the field in a new direction, based on concrete evidence and good scholarship, it a great way to make your name.

YECreationism simply isn't coherent, because it doesn't agree with the evidence. To make it work you have to posit ever more complex physical scenarios. But each such scenario would in turn have side-effects, which (surprise) aren't observed, so you end up with even more complex scenarios to explain the lack of support for the previous one. So to counter dating methods you posit increased decay rates in the past, but that would mean incredible heat output, so you posit that rocks didn't melt back then, but that would mean there wouldn't be igneous rocks from the period, and so on and so on until the person you're debating with gives up in astonished exasperation and you claim a resounding victory.
.

Originally Posted by Mallon
Don't waste your time, Scotishfury. As juvie said above:

This is his usual response when directed to relevant scientific literature.

Some people obviously have an ideological objection to evolutionary science, but I think it is the height of dishonesty to refuse to propely understand the science and instead cast aspertions on it.

At first it is ignorance, obviously. But when someone gets as far as AiG, for example, it can only be propagated by wilful distortion of the truth. Particularly since many scientists over many years have taken time to point out the errors and distortions, and YECs have continued to trot out the same garbage.

Lying for Jesus is a horrible sight to behold.

 

[Vance]

I even pointed him to a fairly short, easy to read summary of what evolution is, and the evidence for it, written by a Christian. I don't think anyone is qualified to say ANYTHING about the evidence for or against, or the possible "issues" with the concept unless they have done at least some basic review.

But, as pointed out above, one of the most compelling things is really the fact that almost ALL of the scientists in the relevant fields of study who are ALSO devout Christians accept it. Even the scientist cited by creationists the most for the problems with evolution, Michael Behe, admits that he agrees with almost all of it, even that we all evolved from a common ancestor. The only part he has a problem with is the idea that it could happen without an intelligent agent behind it all.

 

[sago]

YECreationism simply isn't coherent, because it doesn't agree with the evidence. To make it work you have to posit ever more complex physical scenarios. But each such scenario would in turn have side-effects, which (surprise) aren't observed, so you end up with even more complex scenarios to explain the lack of support for the previous one.

If you've ever seen children lie you've seen this in action.

You say: "why are you late", they say "because my mum was ill", "but I just saw her drop you off", "she is feeling better."... eventually the story either gets too complex to keep up (although kids can take this a loooong way), or else they manage to get to an explanation that you can't easily check, and you have to concede that they could be telling the truth.

YEC's list of 'yes, but..' are very loooong and getting longer with each new refutation.

 

[Mallon]

I got it. It is by Amy Moran in 2004

What do you want me to do with it?

If I spend time on it (it is not my field), I want to know that I would be some help to someone. How did you come with this particular article? Does the content mean anything to you? What kind of thought or report do you like me to give?

Juvie, YOU'RE the one who asked for a scientific paper to read in your last post:

You give me one such paper, I can give you back a few unsolved problems related to the very issue the paper addressed.

Now it just sounds like you're trying to come up with excuses not to read it. If nothing else, read it for your own personal gratification! You might actually learn something about evolution!

Sometimes, I'm tellin' ya...

 

[sago]

How do you know that ALL of them are evolved?

then

I know what evolution is.

Clearly you don't. A basic level of understanding of evolutionary theory would be sufficient to know that the question is meaningless.

 

[juvenissun]

For example, my PhD research was in genetic regulatory network dynamics. I solved an important problem (on the mathematical limits of modularity in the network). My research raised a million more questions that I didn't have time to address.

None of those problems could in any way be construed as problems with evolution. In fact quite the opposite, a large proportion of the results I found (particularly around so-called 'genes-in-pieces') were directly and quantitatively predicted by an evolutionary model.

To be entirely frank, it would have been better for me if they weren't. If I had found something that couldn't be explained by current evolutionary theory, I could have made my career right there and then.

So you do know what these "papers" mean. They just keep contributing new evidences to a big model, predictable or not. In the theory of evolution, no matter how many studies has been made, there are STILL so many unanswered questions remained. If so, why would you want to believe the model as a truth? I am not saying the model of evolution is easily falsified. But we probably would not be able to confirm it in the future either. A subject which has been so intensively studied as it is, the remaining problem is not getting fewer, but getting more. Don't you think it is very strange?

Why is there few research which discovered evidence against the theory of evolution? Very simple, people do not have the motivation at the beginning of the research design. They always designed a research so that the predicted result would either be conformable with the theory, or be used to expand the theory. This is why I said, before the start of the research, the result is already known.

Take the paper Scotishfury09 threw to me as an example, it does not matter what would Amy find on the measurement of the egg size, she can always say either the result fits the evolution theory, or the result simply add a new unsolved problem to the theory. Either way, the theory is not challenged.

 

[juvenissun]

then



Clearly you don't. A basic level of understanding of evolutionary theory would be sufficient to know that the question is meaningless.

Well, the question is meaningful enough "relative" to the stupid statement.

 

[juvenissun]

Juvie, YOU'RE the one who asked for a scientific paper to read in your last post:



Now it just sounds like you're trying to come up with excuses not to read it. If nothing else, read it for your own personal gratification! You might actually learn something about evolution!

Sometimes, I'm tellin' ya...

I am not asking you. I am asking ScotishFury09.

If what he wanted is only three questions related to the discovery of the paper, I will just do that. But if I give three questions (carelessly or carefully), who is able to appreciate the question if nobody else here care to read the paper? Has ScotishFury09 read it yet? If he simply picked one from the database and threw it to me, why should I care about it?

 

[Assyrian]

If an abundance of outstanding questions means we shouldn't accept a scientific theory, when do you think we should accept the heliocentric solar system or atomic theory? Who had more questions about the solar system, Copernicus or modern astronomers? Who had more questions about the structure of the atom Rutherford or modern physicists? Should we reject Rutherford's idea of an atomic nucleus until every last question is answered? Perhaps matter is really continuous as the Greeks thought before Democritus imagined the idea of atoms. Or do you actually believe the existence of atoms and a heliocentric solar system are actually true, even if not fully understood.

 

[Scotishfury09]

How do we get to 50% evidences, 50% questions?

Last year alone in the three major international journals on biology (out of several hundred peer reviewed journals and conferences) there were over a hundred papers containing evidence confirming of evolution.

And do you suggest that any or all these papers provided solid solutions to the problem investigated? That is a non-sense. It only cheats people who never know what a scientific article really is.

You give me one such paper, I can give you back a few unsolved problems related to the very issue the paper addressed.

Egg Size Evolution in Tropical American Arcid Bivalves: The Comparative Method and the Fossil Record

You say your logic is very good. Well, here goes... Just to clarify, sago said there were hundreds of articles from just three major journals on Biology that provide evidence confirming evolution. You said to give you one such paper and you would give back a few unsolved problems related to the issue. I gave you an article.

Let's have some unsolved problems, shall we?

 

[Vance]

Juvi, please, take a few minutes away from this board and go read this general overview:

http://community.berea.edu/scienceandfaith/essay05.asp

before you bother posting anything else about evolution as a theory.

When you have done that, I will be happy to listen to where you think the author has it wrong. If you don't, you really have no standing to discuss the matter at all.