What are the Weaknesses of Evolution?

[Impaler]

Now.... My beliefs are based on one book, yours upon another.

How do we determine which one of us is correct?

My books have evidence supporting them. Even if we've just made the simplest components of a simple replicator that's still infinitely more evidence than God creating life.

If we should stop teaching evolution because we don't know where life came from then we should stop teaching biology all together. We should also stop teaching chemistry because we don't where chemicals came from and physics because we don't know where the laws of physics came from.

 

[JamesDaJust]

The current battlecry of creationist/ID institutes like AiG, the Discovery Institute, and ICR is that science classes should discuss the weaknesses of the theory of evolution. So what are those weaknesses?

The fact that there is no proof of it today.
Where is the evolution today.
Shouldn't we still be witnessing the evolve of these theories presently?

 

[CSchultz]

My books have evidence supporting them. Even if we've just made the simplest components of a simple replicator that's still infinitely more evidence than God creating life.

But my book is based on over 5,000 manuscripts, written by eye witness accounts of highly intelligent prominent witnesses to Christs resurrection, His appearances after He was able to lay down His own life, then take it back up again and followed by 2,000 years of scholarly, and brilliant people, who have scrutinized and compared all of these eye witness accounts, and found them ALL to be without discrepancy.

So my books, also have evidence supporting them as well, and were witnessed, by eye witnesses.

If we should stop teaching evolution because we don't know where life came from then we should stop teaching biology all together.

I am not saying that.

I am saying that we should teach the truth.

If you are an evolutionist, then surely you would agree that our next generation is imperative to our development.

Teach them the truth.

Evolution is one of many theories, it has some basis, and it has many aspects that we cannot prove.

Creation is also equally plausible.

 

[Gracchus]

Okay. That's very fair.

Now...The Bible, Gods revealed Word, is what happens when created living humans, reproduce, are fruitful and multiply, and it completely, and without error, explains Gods gracious, and merciful covenants since the first life appeared.

http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFilePath=journals/ijpn/vol2n1/harlequin.xml

How do we determine which one of us is correct?

Res ipsa loquitur.

 

[Bombila]

Okay. That's very fair.

Now...The Bible, Gods revealed Word, is what happens when created living humans, reproduce, are fruitful and multiply, and it completely, and without error, explains Gods gracious, and merciful covenants since the first life appeared.

Now.... My beliefs are based on one book, yours upon another.

How do we determine which one of us is correct?

You could note that the science of evolution is not contained in one book, but in many; that it is a science which necessarily underpins much of the biological research we do today; that no other theory better explains life as it exists today.

That when you began your argument, you did not know that abiogenesis and evolution were seperate sciences, immediately tips people off to your having read very little in the fields of evolution, biology, geology, paleontology and other sciences, even though vast amounts of information are available even within this single forum. Educating yourself on the relevant subjects would greatly improve your ability to debate without falling victim to endless PRATTs

You are free to believe that God began it all, set life in motion, and most people will leave you to it, but when you insist that facts are not facts, thus undermining education, various sciences, and medicine, people will kick over the traces.

 

[CSchultz]

Yes Gracchus, we do see disease, pain and suffering in this fallen world...

"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

As you stated, some things speak for themselves.

We no longer live in a perfect world, and that too has been revealed to us.

 

[USincognito]

But my book is based on over 5,000 manuscripts, written by eye witness accounts of highly intelligent prominent witnesses to Christs resurrection, His appearances after He was able to lay down His own life, then take it back up again and followed by 2,000 years of scholarly, and brilliant people, who have scrutinized and compared all of these eye witness accounts, and found them ALL to be without discrepancy.

So my books, also have evidence supporting them as well, and were witnessed, by eye witnesses.

This is apologia for the Gospels. Now tell us the same thing applies to Genesis.

 

[CSchultz]

Educating yourself on the relevant subjects would greatly improve your ability to debate without falling victim to endless PRATTs

I was wondering when we would get to the inevitable... "I'm rubber and you're glue" argument.

 

[Bombila]

I was wondering when we would get to the inevitable... "I'm rubber and you're glue" argument.

If I had a clue what you meant by that, I might be able to argue back.

If you think I may have been slighting your education or intelligence, you are wrong. You might be a lawyer with twenty years of cases behind you, or an engineer whose construction skills are phenomenal, or an architect about to stun the world with your next creation. But you demonstrated a lack of knowledge on the subject at hand.

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

Now...The Bible, Gods revealed Word, is what happens when created living humans, reproduce, are fruitful and multiply, and it completely, and without error, explains Gods gracious, and merciful covenants since the first life appeared.

But humans, just as any other species, doesnt reproduce "without error". The way DNA is replicated is very good, but not perfect. This imperfection results in mutation. Most mutations are benign, some are bad, and a few benefit survival. Natural selection (observably so) will then direct the beneficial mutations throughout the population and this drives evolution.

Now.... My beliefs are based on one book, yours upon another.

How do we determine which one of us is correct

Evidence.

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

The fact that there is no proof of it today.
Where is the evolution today.
Shouldn't we still be witnessing the evolve of these theories presently?

Natural selection, mutation giving rise to traits not previously found in the population(new information), and speciation have all been observed both in the lab and in nature. The kinds of changes you are probably thinking about (eyes and wings or ape to man) span the lifetimes of several entire species and take millions of years to occur.

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

I am saying that we should teach the truth.

If you are an evolutionist, then surely you would agree that our next generation is imperative to our development.

Teach them the truth.

Evolution is one of many theories, it has some basis, and it has many aspects that we cannot prove.

Creation is also equally plausible.

To say that creationism is equal to evolution is an insult to science. Creationism produces no science. The acceptance of evolution by the scientific community is as close to 100% as you can get. There is no serious scientifically sound alternative.
Creationism explains everything by saying "god did it", which explains nothing because if you believe in God then you believe that anything that exists was created by him. It gives us no insight into the how and the why of nature. Evolution gives us the how ant the why of nature.

 

[us38]

Sounds to me, like some "Dude" did it on a "Dell."

Of course you can control all of the variables in a program. It's a program. It only does what it's told to do. Real life is another story entirely.

Why not prove it?

Prove what?

 

[Impaler]

But my book is based on over 5,000 manuscripts, written by eye witness accounts of highly intelligent prominent witnesses to Christs resurrection, His appearances after He was able to lay down His own life, then take it back up again and followed by 2,000 years of scholarly, and brilliant people, who have scrutinized and compared all of these eye witness accounts, and found them ALL to be without discrepancy.

So there are eyewitness accounts of Moses parting the Red Sea, the ten plagues of Egypt, Jesus' resurection and Noah's flood?

I am saying that we should teach the truth.

There is no absolute truth in science. Everything is potentially falsifiable.

Evolution is one of many theories, it has some basis, and it has many aspects that we cannot prove.

No other theory comes close to explaining the diversity of life.

Creation is also equally plausible.

No it's not. Finding one gap in a theory doesn't automatically put it on par with others. Not knowing the location of every star in the universe doesn't make astrology equal to astronomy.

Aside from that creationism has made no testable predictions, has no evidence supporting it, has no peer review publications, no testable hypothesis and is essentially one big PRATT list. It's nowhere near equally plausible.

 

[Tiberius]

There are several weaknesses, all regarding how easily evolution can be falsified.

Fossils in incorrect layers, such as fossil bunnies in the Precambrian would do the job nicely.

Also, a half-and-half creature, like a sphinx, mermaid, pagasus, hippogriff, fairy etc would also falsify it.

And yet, despite the fact that you only need one thing to falsify evolution...

It's never been falsified.

Interesting, huh?

 

[nvxplorer]

It doesn't include God. That's the main one.

Was God included in your algebra textbook?

 

[Steezie]

There are two main problems with evolution.

Education and immagination.

The evolution theory itself is fine. Most rational people look at the theory of evolution and say "Yeah, that could work." The problem isnt the theory, its the presentation.

Education is the first problem. There is a MASSIVE ammount of mis-information and ignorance about the subject that needs to be cleared up. People thinking evolution happens in a few generations, "if man came from monkeys why are monkeys still here?", etc etc. You need to teach people.

Second problem, immagination. Given the absolutely massive variety of biomass that we have, many people find it hard to believe that ALL of it came from one single ancestor. A fruitfly and an elephant? No way! People fill this gap with religion and revoke evolution. They use it as a pre-text for the disbelief in evolution

 

[MrGoodBytes]

http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFilePath=journals/ijpn/vol2n1/harlequin.xml

Oh, I am so not opening a link including the word "harlequin".

 

[ChordatesLegacy]

The current battlecry of creationist/ID institutes like AiG, the Discovery Institute, and ICR is that science classes should discuss the weaknesses of the theory of evolution. So what are those weaknesses?

I am a firm believer in evolution, but I would be the first to admit we do not know everything on this subject, or indeed any subject.

Thus, even through the evidence for evolution is great, I see the main problem being the evidence we do not yet have. This allows religious nutters to point to gaps in the evidence, as evidence for creationism.

Therefore, evolution suffers from fragmentary evidence. Whereas, creationism suffers from no evidence.

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

I am a firm believer in evolution, but I would be the first to admit we do not know everything on this subject, or indeed any subject.

Thus, even through the evidence for evolution is great, I see the main problem being the evidence we do not yet have. This allows religious nutters to point to gaps in the evidence, as evidence for creationism.

Therefore, evolution suffers from fragmentary evidence. Whereas, creationism suffers from no evidence.

I think if you want a very good example of a glaring gap in our knowledge that bears no effect on whether or not the concept is valid it is the fact that we have yet to find the atomic origin of gravity. The atomic origin of every other fundimental force has been found but we dont know what causes gravity. This is a BIG gap in our knowledge about gravity, but there is so much evidence that gravity exists that while this is still an important problem to solve, the lack of an answer poses no threat to the scientific validity of gravity. I would argue that gaps in our knowledge of evolution are analogous to this in that while they are important to solve their lack of an answer poses no threat to the survival of the concept.