Disprove evolution
 

Felt it might be an intersting exersize, and get the discussion in here going again.
Is there any way to "Prove" that evolution is an incorrect model?

not with the current evidence. If there were, the creationists would have already won ;)

Nope.

Damn. That was a short discussion. Of course you can't disprove evolution...any more than you can disprove creationism. I would, however, argue that the proof for evolution lies in the fossil record; whereas the proof for creationism lies totaly in the Bible, which I don't beleive in either.

There are two meanings of the words fact/know/prove/etc.

There is the philosophical, pedantic, epistemological version: Essentially we cannot know anything, after all we could be plugged into The Matrix...

There is also the ordinary everyday sense of these words. It is a fact that New York is a city in America. I know that I am sitting at my computer typing. It is a fact that the earth is round, and that it revolves around the sun.

Evolution is a fact in the same sense of the word that it is a fact that the earth is round.

You can get pedantic and philosophical and demand that evolution is "just a theory", but to ensure that you are not being inconsistent, it is necessary that you apply that same status to everything. ("it is only a theory that things fall down, not up")

OK, Ustwo, I get your point. Substitute "proof" with "evidence", and I still stand by my statement.

Oh, and welcome back, by the way.

I didn't go anywhere, just avoiding politics, though I have been 'asked' back by someone I respect a lot so I may return :hmm:

BTW that wasn't aimed at anyone.

Would you come back if asked by someone you have absolutely no respect for.....please. Regardless of differing opinions, you are valuable to the community, and......missed.

I think the question was, not whether or not given the current evidence it was reasonable to believe that evolution was incorrect, but whether or not there is any possible evidence that would disprove evolution. I would assume there is, but I'm not sure what it could be, and I'd like to see suggestions as to what exactly it could be.

asaris:
I'm not really sure if that was what the question is asking...it would be a pretty uneventful conversation.

Of course evolution could be proved wrong. All scientific claims must be falsifiable, and evolution is no exception. In Origin, Darwin made plenty of points, that if true, would be "absolutely fatal to my theory",
The strongest of these points is thus:
Simple. If evolution is false, then finding such a counter example should be no problem. 150 years later...nada!

One of my biggest annoyances with the evolution debate is the apparent inability of those on the anti side to understand the concept of a scientific theory. When scientists refer to something as a theory they are essentially saying "no one has been able to prove this idea wrong yet." not "hey i have an interesting idea that i just came up with on the spot." In the last 150 years no one has been able to disprove the theory of evolution -- that doesn't make it defiantly true (science has high standards for declaring something a law) but it makes it a lot more viable than most other ideas out there. drives me freaking nuts.

/sorry for being a bit off topic.

Read Michael Crichton's Prey if you want a better understanding of evolutionary possibilities. He shows how competition causes adaptive responsiveness and relationships with other organisms.

Well I have to say that I would be very much against the idea of reading science fiction with the aim of understanding scientific concepts.

If you are looking for a good solid introduction to what evolution is all about, then I would strongly reccomend The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. Absolutely unparalleled introduction to evolution.

AAAHHHH!! I just started that book three days ago...don't say any more.

I’ve always have had a natural understanding of evolution. The concepts to me are as natural as breathing. Back when I was just staring my biology degree, I walked into a class of 800 students in the standard biology 110 course and scored 4th highest without going to a lecture, and I never had much experience in evolutionary biology before. The second class was the classic biology material and my equal effort got me a C, heh. The subject matter to me is as clear as gin, and goes down easier. I switched my major to one more ‘evolution’ based from the basic biology and have never understood how people have a hard time understanding evolution.

That being said don’t over estimate evolution any more than underestimate. Not all positive traits survive, not all negative ones die off, and just because it could work doesn’t mean the right mutations will happen to allow it.

I don’t think you can be a really competent biologist without understanding evolution, on almost any level. The interlocking species, the ebb and flow of bio-diversity, the basic chemistry of the cell is all part of this understanding.

Just always remember that you are the end product of for billion years of evolution, but so is the mosquito you just swatted and the bacteria growing on your teeth.

This would be an unending debate. Both sides of the argument believe that it's possible, at least in their mind, to disprove the other side. Otherwise why would they believe as they do?

There has been a long discussion HERE with both sides trying to prove or disprove the two theories.

Personally, I say that if it's not observable and reproducible then you can't prove it. I have yet to see a dinosaur evolve from any lower life form or a dinosaur be spoken into existence by a higher being and I believe no one else as observed it either. So by those rights you cannot prove either.

I'm sorry but creationism is NOT a theory because it does not hold up to any tests. Its evidence is poor, its non-predictive, and contradicts the fossil record no matter how you want to look at it.

Its easier to believe that God set up the fossils and other evidence (and some have claimed this) then it is to believe that there is evidence for creationism.

Creationism is not a science any more then astrology or witchcraft.

It has been debated, debunked, defeated in all scientific terms, and only someone with a rabid belief in literalist interpretation of the bible could think other wise provided they were willing to look at the evidence.

I’d hate to tell you how I REALLY feel about it.

ok guys

How about these apples...

What I understand through various readings, is that God made the heavens and the earth...and the earth brought forth life!

Nowhere in the bible does it say that evolutionary process is wrong!

Can we both be right?

No. Because that's not what creationism is.

Creationism is the belief in a literal six day creation by God, a la Genesis. (So yeah, it does say in the bible that evolution is wrong....if you insist on taking it word-for-word)

You can still see that evolution is true and believe in God, but that is not what the "debate" is about.

Not so. Evolution is observed all the time! Ever heard of drug-resistant bacteria? Where did they come from? I mean they didn't exist before...maybe our merciful and all-loving god decided that medical advances were going too far, and decided to whip up something new in his Creation Kitchen?

Or maybe they aren't new, merely evolved forms of other strains of bacteria, with a devolped trait of resistance to the popular drug. Such a turn of fate was predicted by evolutionists, who were warning about the misuse of drugs, before these drug resistant strains appeared.

If you want to actually perform a controlled experiment to view evolution in action, that can be done too. By exposing a sample of bacteria, over time, to higher and higher concentrations of a toxin, you can breed a drug resistant strain, right before your eyes!

Creationist: Yeah, but that's only microevolution.

Evolutionist: Sorry? 'microevolution'? What's that?

Creationist: It's a new term we made up. Anything that you can observe , we are defining as microevolution. Lets see some proper evolution...macroevolution

Evolutionist: So, you are defining everything that can be observed as microevolution, and are complaining about that fact that no one has observed macroevolution? Hmmm....

Yeah you really sound SORRY!:hmm:

CSflim -- you're not really being fair to creationists. It seems to me to be a valid point that there's a difference between evolution within a species and evolution between species. Not that I agree with them, but I don't like to see them unfairly ridiculed either.

The point in my earlier post was that, if evolution could not be disproved, it wasn't a scientific theory, for all that it might look like a scientific theory. Now, as Popper has shown, all scientific theories tend to undergo ad hoc adjustments to preserve the theory. But at the end of the day, they can in fact be disproved. But a non-scientific theory like Freudianism, or Creationism for that matter, cannot be disproved, no matter what new facts come to light. One should be, at least, very suspicious of these sorts of theories. And it's a valid question as to whether or not evolution is really a scientific theory. To those who don't know a lot of science, it's very easy to make evolution look like a bunch of guesses, altered to fit the facts every time they change.

No one has actually seen a dinosaur AT ALL -- if you believe in the existence of dinosaurs you are already accepting the existence of something that cannot be observed or reproduced (Jurassic park non withstanding ;)). On top of that most creationists deny the existence of dinosaurs entirely or claim that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth TOGETHER.

The kind of evolution that I think you are demanding be produced before your eyes (what most refer to as "macroevolution" but which as was pointed out by CSFilm is really just sequential instances of "microevolution") takes place over hundreds of thousands of years. It you really want to understand evolution research it, I think you'll find that the science is there to support the theory -- something that is not even promised by the creationists.

Personally, I say that if it's not observable and reproducible then you can't prove it. I have yet to see electrons and protons appear in front of my eyes or I believe no one else living has observed them either. So by those rights you cannot prove either.

I have yet to see the dark side of Uranus with my own eyes and no one else living has observed it either. So by those rights you cannot prove it exists.

I have yet to see what's in the center of the earth and I believe no one else living has observed it either. So by those rights you cannot prove there's anything there.

I have yet to see a uranium atom split (all you can see is a big explosion) and I believe no one else living has observed it either. So by those rights you cannot prove that that's what's happening when you bombard uranium with neutrons.

I posted this on another very similar topic, and will post it again here, because it fits. Call it circumstantial evidence against evolution explaining our current biology.
Yes, this makes three times now that I have posted the same quote, but I think it's compelling stuff.

dy156: well this at least is a step in the right direction for such a debate, as at least it represents some kind of an argument (unlike most of the sad tired creationist objections). However, it happens to be a rather deceptive claim:

Endorphin levels are elevated even by relatively minor trauma. Alleviating the pain and stress of a person who has suffered a trauma can keep them functional enough to take life-saving actions such as staunching the bleeding or seeking help. That endorphins are released also during fatal trauma is a side effect.

still an interesting point--during minor trauma, the endorphin levels may be raised, but not to the point that you feel more 'at peace' than you would on a normal day--just enough that you can stay functional and take care of yourself properly. Why would the brain cause a sense of peace when you're in mortal throes?

On the other hand, for every story of a person saying that they felt a sense of peace at the moment of death, there are probably 10 that say they never felt worse pain ever in their entire life before they were rescued from the fire, pulled out of the cold water, given a morphine injection, etc.

I think there are two seperate arguments at work here.

There is the actual biological fact that recieving a mortal wound will flood your body with endorphins. I explained above why this occurs, and why it does not in any way contradict evolution. The more trauma, the more endorphins.

As for the sense of "feeling at peace" argument, well, like you said this is not an established fact, though I am sure that it happens in many cases (as well as the very opposite in plenty other cases). But again, I don't see how this is supposed to challenge evolution. It seems to me a rather simple psychological phenomenon.

EDIT: And the fact that not every human trait has any obvious survival benefit does not prove evolution wrong.
e.g. There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of survival benfit in appreciating beautiful sunsets! or music, or art, or whatever. Doesn't prove evolution wrong.
Since there is no complete model of how the human mind works, we cannot definitively say why humans tend to do X. Only armed with such knowledge can we begin to try and understand why such traits evolved.

I just wanted to point out that I have yet to meet a creationist that DOESN'T believe that dinosaurs and humans walked the earth together. IF they believe that everything was created in 7 days how could they not believe that all the creatures at one time co-existed?

Not only that, but they were brought on the Ark with Noah. :lol:

"In Genesis 6:19–20, the Bible says that two of every sort of land vertebrate (seven of the 'clean' animals) were brought by God to the Ark. Therefore, dinosaurs (land vertebrates) were represented on the Ark."
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs...nos_on_ark.asp

I believe in both God and evolution, because if find it pretty difficult to believe that a great big swirling cloud of matter (The Big Bang) managed BY CHANCE to coalesce into universes, and that on hot chunk of rock, those same atoms of matter managed to become everything that exists on this fine planet we call home without some divine direction. It just doesn't seem plausible that out of all the diverse forms of life on this planet, apes alone managed to evolve into humans. Dolphins are just as smart as those apes, why isn't there an intelligent race of sea-dwellers?

Who knows? We may be some divine godling's version of a sea monkey kit...add water and in a couple billion years you have a solar system with real live creatures on it...(this kind of goes back to the argument that we all may be plugged into the matrix) I say that you can really never ever know, you just gotta believe in whatever floats your boat.

Xothan

The reason people relax in when they receive major trauma is rather simple. When in the jaws of a predator any struggle will be met with further mauling. A limp prey will not receive further attention. This buys us time to think about a possible solution or for our mates to come in and save the day.

It is also important to note that humans are not the only ones who experience this relaxation during major trauma.

The reason this feeling of calm does not happen during minor trauma is also explainable. When receiving a flesh wound we tend to flinch away from the source of pain. This is the best response to stop further damage to our bodies. When you put your hand on a hot stove there is no time to stop and think, hence we instinctively jump.

Two things are unavailible to Sea life.....Fire, and Hands.

Fire= accessible energy=eventual technological innovation.

Hands=Tools=eventual technological innovation.

Water is the brick wall, that has prevented cetacean developement beyond current abilities. Maybe if whales had hands they could utilize hydrothermal vents as energy sources, but what media would they build with?

The point in my earlier post was that, if evolution could not be disproved, it wasn't a scientific theory, for all that it might look like a scientific theory. Now, as Popper has shown, all scientific theories tend to undergo ad hoc adjustments to preserve the theory. But at the end of the day, they can in fact be disproved. But a non-scientific theory like Freudianism, or Creationism for that matter, cannot be disproved, no matter what new facts come to light. One should be, at least, very suspicious of these sorts of theories. And it's a valid question as to whether or not evolution is really a scientific theory. To those who don't know a lot of science, it's very easy to make evolution look like a bunch of guesses, altered to fit the facts every time they change. [/B][/QUOTE]

This has always been my contention- Evolution and evolutionary theory does not allow for the possibility of being disproven. No matter what takes place that may seem to upset the theotetical apple cart, adjustments are made- especially in the timeline- to make room for the theory being proven out.
This gives Evolution not so much the credibility and and credentials of a legitimate science as much as that of a desperate and immediate denial of creationism and it's very own "Non-God" religion, with you scientists as the high priests and messiahs of the world of reason and rationale!
What hogwash.
I don't think it possible in a reasonable sense to disprove evolution using science because that will never be allowed. The bias within the scientific/religious community is much too great.

This argument has no end.

Mantus, realize that dolphins are really close relatives of ours.

Mammals are much smarter and/or more active than the competing lifeforms (reptiles and birds), and the age of mammals isn't all that old.

Hell, the age of animal life on land isn't that old, or the age of herbivor/carnivor/plant serious competition. And, if I know my paleobiology, the the concept of multicellular life is pretty recent.

All of these are on scales compared to the age of the earth.

The solar system itself isn't that old for a star of it's type: and only stars of its type would have as much high atomic-weight atoms lieing around, giving us the building blocks of technology.

There are explanations behind how the universe is hospitable for life. Amoung them are the "really damn huge" universe explainations, where the universe is MUCH MUCH larger than we think it is, and what we think of as 'universal constants' vary slowly over the entire universe.

The 'universe' we know and love happens to be a place where the constants are hospitable to life. Life and intelligence doesn't show up where it isn't hospitable to life, to life never seeing a 'universe' inhospitable to life wouldn't be shocking.

(I think this is an arguement based off the weak anthropomorphic principle?)

Thagrastay, apologies, but that is complete nonsense of the highest order.

Evolution is most definitely falsifiable.

The Origin of Species is full of examples of how the theory could be destroyed beyond all repair.
I gave one such example above, and also the argument of evidence for a merciful God due to endorphin release.
Such things if true, would most definitely disprove evolution.
At the time of Darwin, it would have been even more open to falsification. There was the blending problem, which could have proved fatal (that newly evolved traits would actually 'fade-away' due to inter-breeding, rather than being passed on down through the generations)...but it was shown not to actually arise (Mendel's peas showed how inheritance actually worked). Erwin Schroedinger in his book What is Life? made some speculations about how it might be solved.... reading this book today, it is striking how closely his speculation aligns with that 20th Century discovery: DNA.
Had the reproduction inheritance mechanism been different from such a thing, the blending problem would have been fatal, and destroyed evolution. You could very easily say that the theory of evolution by natural selection predicted modern genetics. While it certainly didn’t give details, it marked out what kind of mechanism would have been consistent.
In Darwin's time, there were not a huge amount of fossils. As more and more fossils came in, things generally fit into place. If Darwin's theory is a myth, it would be one hell of a coincidence for all of these fossils to slot so neatly into place. Now granted, there are exceptions...but they are, as you can guess...the exception not the rule. Also it is important to realise, that all of these exceptions which have occurred do damage NOT to the theory of evolution, but only our ideas of what actually happened.
(ie. it is one problem to come up with the laws of gravity. It is another to apply this law to predict the motions of the planets/comets) There is still much controversy among scientists of what actually happened (the classic argument being Punctuated Equilibrium vs. Gradualism). Regardless, all of the fossils that have been found fit within the theory, but it is certainly logically possible that fossils which couldn't be explained by evolution could be found.
There are plenty of ways that evolution could be falsified. Admittedly, it is very hard to see today, how such a thing could be done, given the massive amounts of evidence we have. But it is falsifiable none-the-less. Reconsidering the theory of gravitation:

Aristotolist: Unfair! You can’t use your theory of gravity to explain things...it’s unfalsifiable!

Newtonist/Einsteinist: Oh but it is! As soon as things start falling up, we can declare gravity well and truly falsified.

So as soon as we start seeing things inconsistent with basic evolutionary theory we will declare it falsified. The appearance overnight of a brand new species would certainly be devastating to evolution, to say the least. It would be as much proof as one could reasonably ask for for the existence of a higher intelligence (either god or aliens!) The discovery of a Pegasus, with a mixture of horse and bird parts, would do irrevocable damage to the theory, as would things like mermaids, centaurs and plenty of other such conceivable creatures. Don’t think that such a thing is a crazy claim; there are plenty of very weird and wonderful life forms on this planet, many incredibly alien seeming...yet they all have one thing in common...they are completely consistent with our biological flagship theory. Like I said above, a static fossil record would have falsified evolution. The discovery of a blending inheritance mechanism would have destroyed it. The discovery of a part of a creature, which is there for the sole purpose of the benefit of another creature would falsify it. There are endless ways in which evolution could be falsified.

Evolution can be falsified; but never has been falsified, even after more than a century of testing.

I also think that it is wonderfully ironic that creationists scream foul-play, with the claim that evolution is unfalsifiable....

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye"

Any scientific theory can be disproven if information becomes available that contradicts a premise of that theory.

Most theories however got to be theories because they take into account all the information/data available.

This is the case with evolution and it is very unlikely at this point that it will be disproven.

It can however like all theories, be modified to fit new information (that doesn't strike at it's premise) as well as be argued at the details level (punctuated equilibrium for example).

Well, if that is the challenege then what should be said is:
"Nobody has ever observed speciation".

But saying "nobody has observed evolution" just sounds so much more impressive, doesn't it? (Too bad that it happens to be false)

The claim that no one has observed speciation is similarly a lie. Take breeds of dogs. There are breeds of dogs which cannot produce viable offspring, and hence are of a "different species". Now certainly no one person has seen speciation occur among dogs, it has happened over many generations. Regardless, doesn't change the fact that it was observed (and directed in some cases).

This is simply the most well known case, but there are plenty of cases of observed speciation.


Actually observing speciation in a single lifetime is of course very difficult, given that
a)Even small changes are painfully slow to evolve
b)Speciation requires massive changes in a creature
So speciation takes a looong time. Regardless, we still have quite a number of examples of observatuons of speciation,

See Observed Instances of Speciation by Joseph Boxhorn for an introduction to the concepts of what a species is, and what speciation is, along with plenty of examples of speciation being observed.
and also some more observed speciation events

Quite right! Or at least it would be if people keep repeating themselves. So to stop the discussion from going around in circles, lets keep a record of the objections which have been debunked:

Evolution is only a theory
Evolution is unfalsifiable
Evolution has never been observed
Speciation has never been observed
Edorphins at death have no surival benefit

So, with this in mind, to avoid repetition, let's leave these particular arguments behind, unless you have something explicit to add to them (as opposed to simply restating them in a different manner).

Well if you believe that
1. Evolution is NOT a theory. and
2. Seciation has been observed.
Then this debate has no purpose whatsoever.

When you refer to dogs that were a different species. Were you saying that they were so simply because they could not reproduce? If that is what you meant that we also created a new species by breeding horses with donkeys and creating Mules. The only problem with this is that BOTH of those new species were completely unable to replicate themselves on their own and thus would be a dead us branch of evolution. Can you find ANY form of speciation that actually produces positive results?

Anyone want to attempt to disprove Creation?

:)

-SF

As a theory sure.

I can find no proof of a devine creation, therefore as a scientific theory it does not hold up.

If you would like to provide such evidence I will be happy to examine it.

I think that what CSflim meant that Evolution is 'not just a theory', but that it is currently a well understood, accepted, and thus far not scientifically refuted Theory.

As far as the dog argument is concerned, I'm not sure how you are contradicting it. Speciation, as I understand it, is not a direct result of combining two existing species. It is beginning with one species, putting this same species in different environments and having different traits produced. This leads to sub-species, and eventually different species altogether. When these traits aren't huge, then the species can still produce viable offspring (wolves and german shepards, for example). When these species are divergent enough, or their combination will result in a genetic inconsistency (as has been tested and shown with mules), then the offspring are not viable. It is clear that horses and donkeys are related- as I understand it this means they at one time shared a common ancestor.

Many dog breeds can produce viable offspring, many can't. However all dog breeds are technically the same species, albeit with many sub-species. The common understanding is that all 'dogs' were domesticated from early wolves, and after enough domestication had enough traits differing to be classified as a separate species. In this case, sub-species of dogs qualify to be different species (and essentially are by modern dichotomy). Thus, a greyhound and a shitzu are species that can reproduce within their sub-species but certainly can't reproduce with each other; both sub-species have developed from a common ancestor as a direct result of human involvement.

I have already explained my views on this.
To claim "Evolution is only a theory" does not constitute an argument. See my reasoning above.

The definition of "species" is not a very strong one. Much of Darwin's Origin of Species is spent explaining how nature simply dpesn't fall into the categories that we design for them. Nature doesn't care about the words we use to describe it, it just is.

As a result "speices" and "speciation", are difficult to pin down.
The most common "working model" defnition of a species is:
Two creatures who cannot produce viable offspring with each other, belong to different species.
(viable meaning...that creature itself being capable of reproduction)

So to your question "Were you saying that they were so simply because they could not reproduce?", I answer YES, because that is the definiton of a species.

For a more in depth look at the meanings of such words, take a look at that first link I provided.

So, in other words....
a) different breeds of dogs, who cannot produce viable offspring, are actually members of a "different species". They will eaither be unable to reproduce, or anything that they do give birth to will be too deformed to be able to reproduce.

b) Donkeys are a different spcies of animal from mules, because they cannot create viable offspring.

Yes! I provided two links, each of which give dozens of examples of observed speciation.

I chose the example of dogs because it is a well known one. However it happens to be a bit of a messy one. (X can mate with Y which can mate with Z, but X can't mate with Z). But if you don't like it, there's plenty more.

As I said before- there are plenty of facts to disprove evolution, but evolution does not allow these into their paradigm and it merely closes ranks and closets its ideas until it can shift gears with a new spin, or talks a bit louder and with more force over you so that you must then stop civil discourse altogether, and then they feel they have gained the day.
Evolution is nothing more than a religion, csfilm. There is no shame in admitting that.
I will nominat you and Lebell for pontiff and bishop, if you would like as well and this can be your very own order, then!

Evolution is no more a science than the tarot or tea leaves, because the ones making the interpretations are also the ones hiding behind the mirrors and teaching the classes.

Was it Marx, Lenin or Trotsky who said: "Give me one generation and I'll change the world"?

Perhaps we need to understand the term theory-

A scientific theory is almost exactly what you have been attempting to express here. No theorist will tell you they have everything correct, as that would be a "law" not a theory. The theory of evolution is a work in progress, and this thread is an attempt to "disprove" this theory.
We will never disprove anything with opinion, this will only lead to personal speculation. A serious attempt to shed light on the weaknesses of a theory will entail factual discrepancies proclaimed by said theory.
As far as the tea leaves and tarot jab, I think you may be pushing your distaste for the theory a bit too far, as there is quite a bit of evidence, thus far, to back up the theory.

This is more of what I am looking for in this thread-

Does evolution truly explain the diversity of lifeforms in existance, or do we need some other force to account for this?

Does evolution explain the reasoning behind extinction, or does the earth itself (god) create species failure?

Can Any one explanation encompass the complicated and intricate functions of "life" and the changes creatures have shown over time?

Its quite possible to believe in evolution and god. The two are not mutually exclusive. I know it means you have to ignore one of the more fanciful tales in the bible, but since over time the bible has been changed, added to and had parts removed by men, perhaps you can just maybe think that one bit isn't literal.

Time to get out of the dark ages.

I'm not sure why my name was drug into this, but to argue that evolution is a "religion" is silly.

And as was mentioned by others, belief in evolution as the mechanism for the development of life (science) and belief in God are not mutually exclusive.

One of the most concise articles dealing with creationists and the arguments they make can be found on line at Scientific American:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...49809EC588EEDF

So, are you going to actually read the posts that disagreed with you, where they provide evidence of specification, and possibly argue against their points?

Or are you just going to repeat yourself, louder?

Are you going to provide
then listen to the arguements against those facts, or are you going to talk
? Because the post above is just talking loudly, and ignoring the points and content brought forward.

Possibly it is against your religious beliefs to look at the evidence on evolution and arguements logically and rationally? Ie, if it is an article of faith that whatever you call "evolution" is a lie, then any evidence brought forward won't matter to you: you value your faith more than you value rational thought.

Please name one fact that disproves evolution. Keep in mind, it must be a fact, not a strawman or a distortion.

Actually by saying that, not only are you admitting an ignorance of the theory of evolution, but also of the definition of religion.

All this reveals is, again, a general ignorance of evolution and of science. Perhaps you should get back into school and pay attention in science class.

Show me the money!
I'd love to hear such facts...as long as they are
a)true and
b)relevant.

some common arguments:
Evolution is a theory: Irrelevant
Evolution has never been observed: false
Speciation has never been directly observed: false and irrelvenat
Evolution violates thermodynamics: completely false.
etc.

If anything stops civil discourse it is when people close their ears and minds, and sink into flat out denial. "La la la...can't hear you"

Please, define these words for me:
Science
Religion

Is it a religion to believe that the earth revolves around the sun?
Is it a religion that things fall down not up?
what is not religion?

"Evolution is no more a science than the tarot or tea leaves"...please give me an example of something that actually is science, and explain explictly how it is fundamentally different from evolution.

This is the very reason why such arguments tend to go around in circles. Because creationists refuse to address any of the points made. You claim that evolution is unfalsifiable, I made a long post explaining PLENTY of ways in which evolution could be falsifed. Please address these points, and show how I am wrong, rather than simply re-stating your argument in different words (which as you can see, is the response that I have come to predict...see my last post on page1).

It seems to me that the biggest problem with discussions about evolution is the strange notion that creationism is its rival theory. Creationism is not a theory, it is not logical nor based on direct evidence and it is certainly not evolution’s rival. Hence creationism has no place in a logical debate concerning the evolutionary hypothesis.

Disprove Evolution?

I can't disprove it, but I can point to some problems (I haven't read much literature on this topic, so much of my criticism may be easily explained away):

As I understand it, the theory of Evolution states that random traits that spring up in species are supposed to be reinforced because they are either 1) beneficial for the survival of the individual mutant or 2) help the mutant to reproduce somehow.

Take the example of a bird's wing. I don't suppose that a fully formed, functional wing would have sprung out of a wingless animal. A little stub of a wing must have grown first. Now, how could a little stubby wing-thingie be at all beneficial to the survival of the animal? Or, how could it make the animal reproduce easier - be attractive? Evolutionists could explain these examples only by sticking to their guns and saying "Well, a stubby wing-thingie MUST have been beneficial to the animal, or the animal wouldn't have survived!!" But that's just saying that evolution is true because the theory of evolution is true. Likewise if wings formed from long appendages spreading out somehow. You could construct some sort of story about gliding animals with flabby-assed arms developing into winged animals, but unless you're really wedded to your account and really want it to work out, you'll probably see that flabby arms probably wouldn't be a good thing or help animals glide.

Sticking to birds - lots and lots of traits must have concurrently evolved in order to make a bird: hollow bones, feathers, wings (probably more). Now, all of these traits seem to work well together (hollow bones make the bird light so it can fly using wings and feathers), but none of the traits seem to be beneficial unless they're paired with the other ones. Quick, name a non-bird with feathers? You mean feathers didn't "stick" as a trait? Okay, maybe the hollow bones came first - name a non-flying animal with hollow bones? Okay, so that doesn't seem to be very beneficial by itself, except as something to help you fly. Wings? Same idea.

I'm not a creationist (not even a Christian/Jew/Muslim), and I don't believe in that shite, but there does seem to be a conspicuous order to the way parts of an organism work together. I know, evolution tries to explain this by saying that the reason the parts work so well is that those traits stuck over time. Step back for a minute and think about something as complex as the eye. Soooo many things have to work in perfect order for an eye to work - how the hell could something like that have evolved the way Darwin says things evolve?

I'm not saying "evolution" is wrong. Of course things evolve. I'm saying Darwin's way of explaining evolution has some problems as far as I'm concerned. I'm happy to be proved wrong, though.

You picked a bad example.

The evolution of the wing and birds is a very hot topic in biology and there is a LOT of evidence.

Wings didn't start out stubby, they were arms/forelegs.

Feathers didn't start out for flight (note not all birds fly) but for insulation and perhaps coloration.

What you had were small, feathered reptiles, which we now think evolved into birds. There are MANY fossils of missing bird/dinosaur links.

Archaeopteryx, the 'first' bird.

http://www.150.si.edu/150trav/discover/d121a.jpg

A VERY early feathered, non-flying dinosaur

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...53aa.tif.2.gif [/IMG]

A better drawing of the above
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...53ab.tif.2.gif

Figure 2 Protarchaeopteryx robusta. a, Outline of the specimen shown in Fig. 1a. b, Outline of the left dentary teeth shown in Fig. 1b. c, Drawing of the front of the jaws, showing the large size of the premaxillary teeth compared with maxillary and dentary ones. Abbreviations: Co, coracoid; d, dentary; F, femur; f, feathers; Fib, fibula; Fu, furcula; H, humerus; m, maxilla; P, pubis; pm, premaxilla; R, radius; S, scapula; St, sternal plate; T, tibia; U, ulna. Numbers represent tooth positions from front to back.

There are more flaws with your argument, but I think you get the picture.

also: evolution has already produced a gliding mammal (flying squirrels),
and who's to say in a few more eons that flying mammals won't develop out of them as they develop lighter bones, faster metabolism, etc etc?

as far as 'non-birds with feathers' go, name any non-flying bird. they feathers' usefulness is not for flight, but insulation in that case.

We already have flying mammals.

They are called bats.

And a great example of convergent evolution when compaired to birds.

oh yeah, duh....

iman: you might want to read the article that Lebell linked -- it address your concerns pretty thoroughly

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ar...E49809EC588EEDF

Well, actually some creationists, completely straight faced, make the claim that god planted those fossils under the ground. Dinosaurs never actually lived. They are just a cruel trick played on us by god. :lol:

Well, I doubt they'd say 'cruel trick'. Probably more 'test of faith'. Sometimes the two look awfully similar...

I guess I picked exactly the examples discussed in Lebell's link: the evolution of birds and the complexity of the eye. What are the chances of that?

Anyways, thanks for correcting me. But I still think something's fishy about how neatly parts of organisms seem to fit together.

By the way, some of the examples from Lebell's link could be interpreted as *supporting* intelligent design - like the stuff about the 13-letter word and how something as complex as that could be "randomly" generated quite simply w/ the help of a selection mechanism. But that couldn't be the way selection "naturally" (without a designer) works in organisms. If there's a fixed goal (a certain 13-letter word / a certain organism - man, maybe??) that's being selected for there's your intelligent design right there. The "hand of god" made things such that over time organisms were perfected so that eventually God was able to create a living being in His image, yada, yada, yada. An evolutionist couldn't use that 13-letter-word argument except against the most hardcore of creationists. An IDer *could* use that against evolutionists, though. I thought that was pretty funny.

Ostrich, Kiwi, Emu...to name but a few. Birds today use feathers for insulation, as well as flying. Most arctic birds would never survive without down. And most of us have a coat or sleeping bag filled with it as well.

He wasn't asking you to name them, he ment think of one and thats one that uses them for insulation.

The interesting part is, whenever people look hard enough at one of those problems, a consistent answer is waiting to be found.

The timescales involved in evolution are huge. All of those well put together critters are the results of millions upon millions of years of evolution. Millions of years is a long time.

*nod*. Just as when a scientist calculates how gravity works, they roll balls down slopes in controlled environments.

It doesn't mean that the controlled environment caused the ball to roll down the slope. It means it is easier to measure and experiment with when you are in a controlled environment.

Yes, if a human designs an experiment, the experiment is a result of intelligent design.

We know that intelligence can guide evolution. This fact does not mean that intelligence is nessicary for evolution to occur.

I mean, set up a gradiant of antibiotics in a petri dish. Insert a bunch of bacteria into the less-deadly half, and feed regularly. The bacterea will evolve to survive the antibiotics. Now, is there some sort of energy field that comes from the intelligence directing the experiment that makes it only work if an intelligence where directing it?

Unless you are asserting that, the equivilent thing would happen if no intelligence caused the situation to occur. So the experiment shows evolution, not intelligent design causes evolution.

Show how the "hand of god" is nessicary to explain the fossil record? Explanations that don't demand god get involved exist, and stand up pretty well. You could claim that aliens modified our DNA, but that isn't nessicary to explain anything either.

Yes, god is consistent with evolution. God is not nessicary to explain human life. God is not nessicary to explain the motions of the heavens. God is not nessicary to explain Thunderstorms. God is not nessicary to explain weather.

God is consistent with all of the above, but is not nessicary. The only reason I can think of objecting to science showing God is unnessicary to explain things is a lack of faith: they think they need evidence of the existance of God, that Faith is not enough.

It demonstrates how easy incremental change is. It doesn't show much, I agree.

It could be used by a dunderhead. =p Natural evolutionists don't disagree intelligence can harness evolution and direct it. The 13 word example is just an example of that.

IDers DENY the possiblity that Natural evolution could result in specification and account for the fossil record. For them to use the 13 letter word arguement as a weapon, they'd have to show how it provides evidence against non-intelligence directed evolution...

Natural evolutionists do not deny that intelligence can use evolution.

Yakk,

That was all really interesting, but I think you've missed my point - which was pretty small.

Nobody [well, nobody with eyes and a brain] would deny your bacteria example. Nobody says that just because a scientist sets up an experiment to study gravity, gravity only exists in lab conditions.

Maybe you didn't actually read the article Lebell linked to (by the way, the link posted by brianna doesn't work. You have to go back to Lebell's post).

The 13-letter word argument tries to show how a selection mechanism that "harnesses" chance could produce something as complex as proteins/DNA/cells/human beings. ID'ers have, apparently, used the argument before that a million monkeys each typing one word per second would take up to 79,000 years to come up with a single 13-letter word. So how could something as complex as a protein, with all those amino acids that have to be in a particluar sequence and particluar shape, have arisen by chance? And that's just *one* protein out of thousands (millions? billions? I don't reallly know), and we haven't even gotten to DNA yet, not to mention RNA, mRNA . . .

To counter this, the smarties at Scientific American have asked us dummies to consider the analogy of coming up with a 13-letter word using the selection-mechanism I described in the last post.

What I'm saying is that the selection mechanism mentioned in the article - generating sequences of 13 letters, and preserving the ones in the right place - works to explain INTELLIGENT evolution, not natural evolution. Yes, you're right - believing in natural evolution does not mean that all evolution is non-intelligent. But evolution must be, at bottom, non-intelligent. How the hell do the guys at SA think they can argue against ID by coming up with a selection mechanism that depends on intelligence?

The argument does not support natural selection over intelligent design.

You wrote that:

"Natural evolutionists don't disagree intelligence can harness evolution and direct it."

Well, I never said they did. The 13-letter word argument does not directly refute natural selection. But natural evolutionists need something more - they need to say that, at bottom, there is no intellegence that directs evolution. IDers, I'm guessing, would be fine having evolutionists show how they can make things easily evolve the way they want in experimental settings - that's *intelligent* design. Natural evolutionists have the further problem of proving how evolution takes place outside of experimental settings.

"IDers DENY the possiblity that Natural evolution could result in specification and account for the fossil record. For them to use the 13 letter word arguement as a weapon, they'd have to show how it provides evidence against non-intelligence directed evolution..."

Here's how an IDer could use the 13-letter word argument as a weapon: If the sorts of mechanisms behind evolution are like those selecting for certain words, then evolution is intelligent. If you Natural evolutionists cannot come up with mechanisms that aren't, at bottom, dependent on intelligence then you are just IDers in disguise.

[please note that I'm just addressing THIS argument for natural selection - the 13-letter word argument. Most of the stuff from Lebell's link was pretty convincing. I just thought they were pretty dumb to include this particular argument]

Jesus Horses! They're called Jesus Horses! I know dinosaurs and man can live together. Haven't you ever watched "Land of the Lost" or "The Flintstones."

(For those of you taking this argument seriously, why? If you haven't figured out that creationism is a crock by high school, you're not going to. If you have, well, don't feed the creationists. It just encourages them.)

This argument is self-contradictory. Essentialy, if we break it down, you seem to be saying:

1) The universe displays complexity, such as intelligent beings.
2) Complexity requires intelligent design.
3) The universe must have been designed by an intelligent being.

That's fine as it stands, but it's self-negating. By your argument that anything as complex as an intelligent being must have been created by another intelligent being, the same goes for God and whatever created him and whatever created that, so on ad infinitum. Do you really think tht something as complex as the universe couldn't come into existence spontaneously, but something complex enough to create it could.

Maybe there is an infinite string of ever more complex Gods who all created each other. Or perhaps it's more likely that they all loop round in a big mobius strip that starts and ends with us creating God.

Also, there is an intelligent race of sea-dwellers. They're called 'dolphins'. If you prefer, there are also 'giant squid' and probably some other freaky clever things down at the bottom of the abbys. If you mean, why don't all other intelligent creatures look and behave like humans in every respect, there are two reasons for that:

1) If they did, we wouldn't know they were a different race anyway, because they would look and behave just like humans.

2) Why should they? Other species evolve to adapt to their own environment and there's more than one way to skin a cat.

To quote one of the 20th centurie's fgreatest philosophers, the dear departed Douglas Adams

Consider this.. This analogy takes into account that there are resources for all possible combinations of all the ingeredients. If for example a million monkeys were typing at typewriters with only the 15 keys on them, it would take considerably less time for that combination of letters to be produced.

I take the argument they make a different way. In the context I understood it, it wholly supports their agurments.

You are looking at it as if the 13 letter word is analogous to a predifined result that evolution produced from a blueprint designed by some mysterious intelligence. Think about it like this: each of the 13 letters represents a trait in an organism that will benifit its survival. A million of these organisms might produce thousands upon thousands of random genetic mutations. On their own, these mutations dont enhance the organisms chance of survival; but a combination of 13 out of the thousands of mutations do. The mutations are random, but a combination of them help the organism survive, so those mutations get passed on. The other useless combinations of mutations fade away because of natural selection.

For everyone who argues that it seems incredible that random chance could have produced us, think about it. Only that series of events from the big bang forward could have produced us. If it had happened differently, we wouldn't be arguing about it. We will never know about the vast majority of times that things went differently elsewhere, and it's entirely possible that they never happened near enough to the same anywhere that we will be able to loacte within the life of our species to produce another species that would ask these questions.

So the intelligent design thing is a spurious argument. So the chances against us happening are one in a gazillion. So what? The universe has a gazillon gaziliion chances, and if one of them hadn't come up with us, then the point is moot.

I'd be really careful about taking scentific advice from folks who thought the world was a flat place at the center of the universe, which is exactly what you are doing if you take Genesis as word for word literal.

And, my point it, unless you think 'intelligence' causes this mystical field to envelope all that it causes, tainting it and making it behave differently, the fact that an intelligence designed the experiment doesn't imply anything.

Yes, like I said, a dunderhead IDer could use the 13-letter arguement as a weapon against evolution. And yes, many IDers are dunderheads.

But, there are selection mechanisms that do not depend on intelligence. Sexual selection. Natural selection. Both are selection mechanisms. As is "stop when the letter matches the word we want". Just another selection mechanism.

Just because a particular selection mechanism we test in an experiment is intelligently designed, says absolutely nothing about other selection mechanisms.

Neither sexual nor natural selection require an overarching intelligence guilding them or saying where the destination will be in order to select.

The arguement you are claiming the IDers would use is basically:
A is "intelligently designed".
A is "a selection mechanism".
B is "a selection mechanism".
thus
B is "intelligently designed".

which is a laughable logic error.

The 13-letter word arguement is not a proof that natural selection must occur. Just because it does not imply the entire result seeked, doesn't mean it undermines the case. It is an easy to grasp example of evolution whose properties you can play with inthe comfort of your own napkin.