How to teach evolution & Evidence for Creationism

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Oi... How do you think that scientific theorys are tested. BY observation on how they predict data. A scientific theory IS a form of observation...That's why they are often referred to as models...

Come on, Blackheart. You know that scientific theories for centuries and centuries have been accepted only to be discarded. For example, the scientific community as a whole did not believe at all in the movement of the Tectonic Plates when the theory was first proposed. The person who proposed the theory received a lot of punishment for his theory, because it was "too Biblical" (the scripture says that in the beginning, all the waters of the earth were in one place, and even mentions "in the days of Peleg, the lands were divided"). Beliefs of science always are being considered, accepted for certain periods of centuries or decades, and then discarded as new evidence shows a vastly more complex process then was hitherto understood. Scientific theories about the continents being stationary have been shown to be wrong. The conclusions based upon observations were faulty. Science does not have all the answers, as you readily admitted when you said, "science has nothing to do with truth."

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Surely you are joking. It must be the text medium. Predict does NOT mean prognosticate... It means that it explains the data and that any new data will not contradict the model. SO FAR nothing has appeared that contradicts the model, nor has anyone come up with one that does so better. Nor is it expected that any data will EVER arise that does contradict it, HOWEVER, you just cannot say that. Because at that point you are crossing into the realm of philosophy and metaphysics.

Which is why, no matter how much data, scientific models are reffered to as theories. You just can not specify that no data will ever appear that contradicts the model; Therefore you cannot OBSERVE that no data will appear. At least until the universe ends. At which point it's a moot discussion.

No pun intended, I suppose .

So far nothing has appeared that contradicts the theory of evolution? That's an excessively grand generalization, in my view. You toss all the countless pages of creationist evidence in the bin as worthless in one go. Some of it, doubtless, is falsified and wrong. Some of it. There's no way to measure how much. However, I have encountered different things in science textbooks that also have been shown by experts to be incorrect. It seems ridiculous to just say "there is no evidence that contradicts the theory of evolution." I think the statement, "I believe that there is no evidence that contradicts the theory of evolution" would be much more valid.

So far nothing is expected to contradict the theory of evolution? Expected by whom? By you? By some intelligent scientists? By most intelligent scientists? If that's what you're saying, I'd like to see your evidence to support it. Not just something like "everyone knows." Lots of intelligent scientists are Christian and do not accept the theory of evolution. Plenty of people expect more evidence against it to appear. Plenty more people are certain that the evidence against it now is very compelling. And they aren't all biased lunatics . Note that you yourself said that no further evidence is expected to come against it. I think that you are somewhat correct in this. Many scientists, and much of the world's population believe the theory of evolution and are unwilling to make any deviation from it. They discard evidence that comes against it or toss it all as "unreliable" without prior examination.

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Want to bet? Happens thousands of times every day. Inside a uterus. It's not a long jump from there to theorizing how such a thing could happen in the outside environment over a couple of billion years.

Actually, that is an extremely long jump. A uterus is an extremely controlled, incredibly complex environment. The conditions are designed to be conducive to the formation of a complex life form. The conditions of Earth at the time single celled organisms are supposed to have emerged was far from conducive to the formation of life. There are many theories currently out there as to how life might have begun, before the evolutionary process took over. There's the primordial soup theory, the thermal vent theory, the meteor collision theory, etc. Which one do you ascribe to?

Originally Posted by Blackheart

However the ability to test for physical manipulation does pose problems for certain philosophical ideas that the data does not support... Specifically things like saying the earth is only 5000 years old, or that humans are from another planet... Sure you could postulate that the aliens, or whoever, falsified evidence, but there is no data to support that theory either, and it is currently untestable, so it still remains in the realm of metaphysics...

You keep saying that there is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER to support Creationism. You laugh at the numerous intelligent scientists and all their arguments that have clashed with the Theory of Evolution. Did you examine ID closely, before you began to scoff at it? Or are you perhaps biased? By the way, I'm not at all insulted. I'm just curious.

[Insidious Rex]

Lief when did you become a hard core creationst? I thought you were ok with the concept of evolution.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Want to bet? Happens thousands of times every day. Inside a uterus.

Oh ... my ... GOODNESS! Do you mean it was just sheer luck that the one-celled thingies in my uterus turned into my lovely children?!?! I could have given birth to, say, a horse, or a TRex, or a fish?!?!

You must be of the "throw it out there and see if it sticks" school of argumentation

(in-laws have extended their visit - will have to respond in more detail later)

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Lief when did you become a hard core creationst? I thought you were ok with the concept of evolution.

I just love to argue about everything, Insidious.

[Lief Erikson]

I do believe God intelligently designed life, and that was a critical point in what I was just arguing about. Perhaps he used evolution as a mechanism in his design, and perhaps not. I don't know. I expect that God did use some sort of natural process to create life, rather then some grand miracle. In the scripture it says that God created mankind out of dust. The scripture does not say that he created man out of thin air. I do believe that life was formed with intelligent design. Just as it describes the making of the universe in Proverbs, how through Wisdom he created all things. One can intelligently use evolution as part of design.

I disagreed with some of Blackheart's views and arguments. I don't know whether I believe evolution happened or not- I don't think I know enough yet. I do dearly love to argue, of course . Unfortunately, I very possibly won't have sufficient time to carry this one on for long.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I just love to argue about everything, Insidious.

A man after my own heart.

[Elemmírë]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I just love to argue about everything, Insidious.

I don't.

Wait, why is the idea of single-celled organisms over millions and millions of years developing into complex organisms so hard to grasp?

Look at two groups of one species of birds who, in a very short time period, geologically, draw apart after being on two separate islands with very little contact, until they're no longer the same species. Now let this happen over and over again for millions and millions of years...

It's a completely different idea, of course, but still deals with the evolution of species from one into another.

[Blackheart]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Come on, Blackheart. You know that scientific theories for centuries and centuries have been accepted only to be discarded.

And why are they discarded? Because someone observes that the model does not predict data as well as a new model...

No pun intended, I suppose .

What? me? Punsters are pun-ished in my universe...

So far nothing has appeared that contradicts the theory of evolution? That's an excessively grand generalization, in my view. You toss all the countless pages of creationist evidence in the bin as worthless in one go. Some of it, doubtless, is falsified and wrong. Some of it. There's no way to measure how much. However, I have encountered different things in science textbooks that also have been shown by experts to be incorrect. It seems ridiculous to just say "there is no evidence that contradicts the theory of evolution." I think the statement, "I believe that there is no evidence that contradicts the theory of evolution" would be much more valid.

I believe I said earlier "credible" evidence. Which would be repeatable data. The odd bits that don't fit aren't particularly troubling, as I said before, it's a model of someone's concept of the "real" process. All that means is that some of the edges need tweaking. But there's no (repeatable, credible) data that I'm aware of that wildly contradicts the theory as it currently stands.

So far nothing is expected to contradict the theory of evolution? Expected by whom? By you? By some intelligent scientists? By most intelligent scientists? If that's what you're saying, I'd like to see your evidence to support it.

You want evidence for an OPINION? (A widely held opinion at that, but it's quite readily apparant that it's an opinion) Now you are just niggling with the details.

But if you really want evidence for an opinion, you can read back and look, there's the evidence for my opinion. Now go talk to some local biologists at a local college. Then you'll have evidence of their opinions also...

Not just something like "everyone knows." Lots of intelligent scientists are Christian and do not accept the theory of evolution.

Name some. I'm curious. Not that intelligent individuals can't be wrong. Anyone can be wrong. But eventually there accumulates a weight of evidence that is difficult to explain in any other way. Until you get a major paradigm shift. And no one has had any hint or whiff of data that is likely to do this with the theory of evolution any time soon.

Plenty of people expect more evidence against it to appear. Plenty more people are certain that the evidence against it now is very compelling. And they aren't all biased lunatics . Note that you yourself said that no further evidence is expected to come against it. I think that you are somewhat correct in this. Many scientists, and much of the world's population believe the theory of evolution and are unwilling to make any deviation from it. They discard evidence that comes against it or toss it all as "unreliable" without prior examination.

Where's all this evidence you keep referring to? Questions about dating techniques and fossil record gaps aren't compelling evidence. Of course there are non-biased lunatics looking at the data that isn't completely explained. Hell that's the only way you can get a PHD is to contribute something new. If you could add a refinement to a theory that better explains some relevant data, you are golden.

Actually, that is an extremely long jump. A uterus is an extremely controlled, incredibly complex environment. The conditions are designed to be conducive to the formation of a complex life form. The conditions of Earth at the time single celled organisms are supposed to have emerged was far from conducive to the formation of life.

Far from conducive? Are you kidding? It's like someone was making organic soup!

And if you don't like the example of cell speciation from combined haploids, go look at slime mold, a collective organism that arises from protozoa.

There are many theories currently out there as to how life might have begun, before the evolutionary process took over. There's the primordial soup theory, the thermal vent theory, the meteor collision theory, etc. Which one do you ascribe to?

What do origin theories have to do with Theory of Evolution? Not a damned thing. Those are a different set of theories, concerning self organization of matter. It's where chemistry, physics, and biology meet. Biology's major contributions are Evolution and the concept of self-organizing genetic heratige.

If you look at it from an (astro)physics point of view, you note that organic compounds are extremely common in the universe.

Chemists like looking at the reactions of such compounds on a molecular level.

But none of those theories are meant to explain how life originated. They only seek to explain how it originated here on earth. My personal opinion is that it was seeded from somewhere else.

You keep saying that there is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER to support Creationism. You laugh at the numerous intelligent scientists and all their arguments that have clashed with the Theory of Evolution.

Yes I do giggle quite a bit.

Did you examine ID closely, before you began to scoff at it? Or are you perhaps biased? By the way, I'm not at all insulted. I'm just curious.

Perhaps I should insult you then. Maybe you'd pay closer attention. If you remember I stated that ID was a useful interesting, philosophical argument. But yes I am going to scoff and giggle at anyone who suggests that it is a scientific theory. Because one of the fundamental issues is that it is not a falsifiable concept.

It's not science. It's metaphysics. And I do have a lot of fun scoffing at people who mix up their science and philosophy.

I even like that word. I'm going to use it more often.

Scoff! Scoff, scoff, scoff scoff scoff scoff scoff....

[Blackheart]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Oh ... my ... GOODNESS! Do you mean it was just sheer luck that the one-celled thingies in my uterus turned into my lovely children?!?! I could have given birth to, say, a horse, or a TRex, or a fish?!?!

Luck had nothing to do with it. It's sex that leads to that sort of thing. Your uterus is not a contruction site, nor an e-z-bake oven. Your children grew in there. From a single cell. All of the instructions neccesary were contained within the cell. Self organized from a single cell.

You're the one who wanted an example of single cells organizing themselves into a collective organism. I suppose now you'll want an explination of why it's important that the cells have a similar (if not identical) genetic heritage.

Which is why you didn't make any ponies in there to give to your children.

If there isn't a similar genetic heritage, then there is no self organization. That's why families form, the same reason multi-celled organisms formed. Shared gentic interests and strength in numbers. It's a lot more effective at passing on the information.

But then I suppose I could have just pointed to slime mold as an example of a self organising collective creature with shared genetic heritage.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

something we in the ethno-archaeology field refer to as self-contained replication from genetic code

[Blackheart]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I do believe God intelligently designed life, and that was a critical point in what I was just arguing about. Perhaps he used evolution as a mechanism in his design, and perhaps not. I don't know.

See... the point is, that's a philosophical argument. It hasn't anything to do with science. It's not an unreasonable philosophical argument either, it's just that it hasn't got a hill of beans to do with anything scientific.

If you're going to complain that your apples are too orange and have a funny bumpy skin, I'm going to scoff at you. SCOFF!

I do dearly love to argue, of course .

May I suggest, for the sake of your hobby, you study a bit of epistomology? I would reccomend: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ra...sm-empiricism/

It's a very cogent outline. I probably should re-read it myself when I have the time.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Which is why you didn't make any ponies in there to give to your children

your post got me thinking, blackheart, wouldnt it be really funny if people did give birth to ponies?

[Blackheart]

Not to mention painful...

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Luck had nothing to do with it. It's sex that leads to that sort of thing. Your uterus is not a contruction site, nor an e-z-bake oven. Your children grew in there. From a single cell. All of the instructions neccesary were contained within the cell. Self organized from a single cell.

exxxx-ACTLY! "All the instructions necessary were contained within the cell" - that's why it turned into a human!! And that's why your example had NOTHING to do with a one-celled thingy (which had all the instructions contained to make one-celled thingies), turning into a human!

You're the one who wanted an example of single cells organizing themselves into a collective organism.

No, I wanted an example of a single cell CHANGING all its information so as to make it something entirely different.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

No, I wanted an example of a single cell CHANGING all its information so as to make it something entirely different.

But thats not evolution Rian. Youre switching the focus to something fantastical from something straight forward and scientific.

[Rían]

If evolution is true, isn't it true that a human can be traced back, in a direct line, to a one-celled thingy?

[Snowdog]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

But thats not evolution Rian. Youre switching the focus to something fantastical from something straight forward and scientific.

Nice dodge IR.

Seriously, if anybody took a close look around them, they would realize that things were created, they didn't create themselves. Chaos does not begat order, only more chaos.

Does this make me a "creationist" or believe in the theory of "creationism" No. It just makes sense to me. Look at a flower or a tree or even moss on a rock, there is extreme order. Where is the order in the Darwinian theory? I don't see it.

Carry on wise ones...

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

If evolution is true, isn't it true that a human can be traced back, in a direct line, to a one-celled thingy?

but this doesnt happen in one generation is my point.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Snowdog

Nice dodge IR.

want to clue me in on how thats a dodge exactly?

[Blackheart]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

exxxx-ACTLY! "All the instructions necessary were contained within the cell" - that's why it turned into a human!! And that's why your example had NOTHING to do with a one-celled thingy (which had all the instructions contained to make one-celled thingies), turning into a human!

Surely you're joking. It has everything to do with it. All the instructions neccesary to make a slime mold are contained in a single amoeba.

The same for any other multi-celled creature. Cells ARE protozoa. They are just more highly specialized in some "more organized" creatures.

Some human cells can survive independant of the host body quite nicely also, especially lymphocytes. There's an interesting case of one woman's particular cells contaminating thousands of samples of cell cultures because it "got loose". They even began to find it on counter tops... Apparantly it was replicating by division.

No, I wanted an example of a single cell CHANGING all its information so as to make it something entirely different.

What the hell are you talking about? You want an example of a spontanious single mutation that converts a single celled protozoa into a colony of protozoa?

It's highly unlikely that EVER happened. What likely happened first is that cells with shared genetic heritage were inhabiting a locality for a very long time and developed the ability to cooperate first. Which enhanced the likelyhood of the cooperating cells to be reproduced. SEX i.e. genetic exhange is a likely candidate for one of the first cooperating behaviors.

I've already given you the best known example of such a transitional stage, the humble, yet fascinating, slime mold.

After sex comes marriage, so after genetic exchange comes colonies. Cells living in locality that function as part of the same creature. Like sea cucumbers. You can tell a colony creature, because if you cut it in half, the entire creature will regrow from the two parts into two individuals.

The reason that doesn't happen with "higher" order creatures is cell specialization. The majority of cells in your body are so specialized in their functions that most of them die when the neurons die. Neurons experience cellular death first because they are very highly specialized and need tremendous amounts of energy and oxygen to survive. In fact quite a few of the cells in your body are there just to provide the neurons with what they need, it's why mammals have such interesting circulatory systems. Because they have hugely devloped nervous systems.

However there are cells in your body that aren't as highly specialized, like lymphocytes and stem cells. These can survive body death for quite a surprising length of time. Especially if they happen to find a suitable environment.