Evolution vs. Creation

[Time Psyduck]

I'm going to see if I can sum up most of your counter-arguments at once:

Micro-evolution (and possible small-scale macro-evolution) has happened. Fine. But in the context of Evolution vs Creation, it's the evolution by natural selection which is significant. This has been demonstrated, but it only takes one organism which doesn't fit to brake the theory, as the exception disproves the rule. I just think it at least needs to be qualified, in that, "This is Evolution. It is a theory. It may not be right, but it looks to be right, there is no notable evidence against it, and so we take it as being fact." All it takes is the recognition of the possibility of error, which seems to be something many people seem unwilling to do. Accepted theory =/= fact, something which seems to be missed a lot.

I don't think that creation should be taught instead of evolution. I think the idea of creation may be worth mentioning as part of a more rounded learning experience, but when learning science, learn what the scientists think (but don't take what scientist think and present it as what scientists know.

More specifically:

The bible does not say what taxonomic levels of organisms were created, if any one such level was standard. The bible says 'kinds', which could be anything from subspecies to phylum. Nowhere did I say I was talking about 'God created life and then it evolved from there'.

I never said I accepted the limits of change idea, but:
1) Cats and Dogs don't compete for the same food in the same habitats.
2) Experiments had (last time I checked) failed to gain a beneficial mutation (or any mutation resulting in something new) in 100 years of research on fruit flies. (I make no claim to the accuracy of this information).

I didn't say evolution was a hypothesis; that was something else.

 

[opaltiger]

"This is Evolution. It is a theory. It may not be right, but it looks to be right, there is no notable evidence against it, and so we take it as being fact." All it takes is the recognition of the possibility of error, which seems to be something many people seem unwilling to do. Accepted theory =/= fact, something which seems to be missed a lot.

...

but when learning science, learn what the scientists think (but don't take what scientist think and present it as what scientists know.

And you seem to be missing the point that you could say the same for any other theory. Should we add a pointless disclaimer at the beginning of every new topic in lessons? It seems to me that one of the very first things a student should learn in science class(es) is that the science is constantly evolving as new discoveries are made, and that the point of the scientific method is to find out what is true, thus meaning that every theory that is taught has been tested many times and has always passed. Maybe they could emphasise that, in a lot of cases, one contradicting example would cause the entire structure to come crashing down. But then they should also mention the more important fact: in a long, long time (depending on the theory in question) no one has found that contradicting example.

My point is, of course no theory is certain. But shouldn't that be one of the first things you learn? How science works? Why would we need to add a specific disclaimer for evolution? It is not any more or less likely to be false than many other theories.

I don't think that creation should be taught instead of evolution. I think the idea of creation may be worth mentioning as part of a more rounded learning experience, but when learning science, learn what the scientists think (but don't take what scientist think and present it as what scientists know.

You are again arguing pointless semantics. When you get right down to it, scientists know nothing with certainty. At this point, the difference between "think" and "know" is complete: the former consists of everything, the latter of nothing, thus rather invalidating the usefulness of differentiating between "almost certainly true" and "certainly true".

1) Cats and Dogs don't compete for the same food in the same habitats.

I have no idea what this is supposed to prove. First of all, a lot of cats and dogs don't need to compete since they are, you know, pets. And it seems likely that the ones who aren't, that is the strays, do compete for the same food in the same habitats (that is, whatever they can find).

More importantly, though, whether or not they do has no bearing on anything. Why? Because there are certainly other animals that did.

2) Experiments had (last time I checked) failed to gain a beneficial mutation (or any mutation resulting in something new) in 100 years of research on fruit flies. (I make no claim to the accuracy of this information).

Most of the experiments being done on Drosophilia are about genetics, not evolution. That is, they have definitely succeeded in bringing about mutations (extra limbs). I'm not sure about beneficial mutations, but that wasn't the primary goal of the researchers so the point is rather moot. What about all the very obvious evolution that has been observed among viruses and bacteria?

 

[Retsu]

AARGH stop splitting hairs! What I mean is that I agree/believe/follow/accept/whatever evolution, obviously.
For crying out loud, I'm agreeing with you.

I know, I'm just being an ass. :) Sorry.

 

[GameFreakerZero]

Yes, of course. God could manipulate selection to produce the results he wanted by the method of evolution. Makes sense

I asked Jason-Kun this as well, why is a god needed in this equation? The point of a god is that it is necessary for it to be there to create the universe, but if it's just pushing things along, something that could've happened anyway, why believe in a god?

Science never proves anything to be true. It simply fails to disprove. That is what distinguishes science from faith; falsifiability. The chances of the theory being proved wrong seem negligible now, but we don't know what the future will bring. Evolution may never be disproven, either because it is correct or because we never reach the truth, but it might be, because that's what makes it science.

Yeah and? Science is the pursuit of truth, if evolution were to be added upon or disproven or whatever, that's a good thing and is how science works. You can't be stuck worrying about a trivial possibility of it being proven wrong, you ignore tiny things like that and move on. If you followed this, "but there's a small chance of something happening" logic out of science, you'd be huddled up in an impenetrable room for fear that you were going to catch malaria, or the ceiling would fall and kill you, or the Earth'd explode. Hey, those are plausible situations and even if the chances of them happening are tiny, they could still happen, maybe in the future, we never know!

This is a valid hypothesis, given the relative lack of transition forms between larger groups, although as an article of faith it cannot be disproven, and so is not scientific.

Oh hey look at that.

Or, on the other side of the coin, everything alive is an example of creation.

Not really, for it to be an example of creation the world would've had to have been made about five minutes ago, so that we'd have been created, meanwhile every birth is an example of natural selection, the parents, of course, surviving long enough in order to reproduce.

To sum up: Evolution is a plausible theory with some good reasoned evidence behind it. What it is not is proven fact, and should never be taken as such. In scientific work, where 'theory' is the closest thing to fact that exists, then it is acceptable, but it should never be promoted as a fact to the layman, or taught as dogma.

It perplexes me how people who believe in a deity with no proof other than their own suspension of disbelief are being so critical of something with mountains of evidence.

 

[Tarvos]

I'm going to see if I can sum up most of your counter-arguments at once:

just like before eh?

Micro-evolution (and possible small-scale macro-evolution) has happened. Fine. But in the context of Evolution vs Creation, it's the evolution by natural selection which is significant. This has been demonstrated, but it only takes one organism which doesn't fit to brake the theory, as the exception disproves the rule. I just think it at least needs to be qualified, in that, "This is Evolution. It is a theory. It may not be right, but it looks to be right, there is no notable evidence against it, and so we take it as being fact." All it takes is the recognition of the possibility of error, which seems to be something many people seem unwilling to do. Accepted theory =/= fact, something which seems to be missed a lot.

THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT SCIENCE RECOGNISES THE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR BUT THE CURRENT THEORY IS ACCEPTED AS THE STANDARD BECAUSE IT FITS THE DATA THE BEST

I don't think that creation should be taught instead of evolution. I think the idea of creation may be worth mentioning as part of a more rounded learning experience, but when learning science, learn what the scientists think (but don't take what scientist think and present it as what scientists know.

"evolution is just a belief"

"yeah but at least ours is founded on something"

More specifically:

The bible does not say what taxonomic levels of organisms were created, if any one such level was standard. The bible says 'kinds', which could be anything from subspecies to phylum. Nowhere did I say I was talking about 'God created life and then it evolved from there'.

"God created everything"

that means it created the inherent taxonomy as well. don't argue this out on bible semantics because whichever way you interpret it it's still inferior to anything darwinism says

I never said I accepted the limits of change idea, but:
1) Cats and Dogs don't compete for the same food in the same habitats.

Lions and hyenas on the savannahs of Africa, anyone?

2) Experiments had (last time I checked) failed to gain a beneficial mutation (or any mutation resulting in something new) in 100 years of research on fruit flies. (I make no claim to the accuracy of this information).

research has been done about more than just fruit flies

I didn't say evolution was a hypothesis; that was something else.

will people with a fifth grade knowledge of science please try to stop lecturing those who have more than that

 

[xkze]

Lions and hyenas on the savannahs of Africa, anyone?

and to a lesser extent, wolves and mountain lions in the americas.
saying this because hyenas aren't dogs
I don't know if you were saying they were
probably not

 

[kid nino]

Personally I am creation all the way. However, that does not in my opinion mean that humans can not change. It's like when you get a mouth expander and it's hard to talk right but you adapt or become adept and can talk normal while it's in your mouth. But, I don't believe we can change into something classified as a different type of animal

 

[Retsu]

Personally I am creation all the way.

Care to state why?

 

[Tarvos]

and to a lesser extent, wolves and mountain lions in the americas.
saying this because hyenas aren't dogs
I don't know if you were saying they were
probably not

Hyenas belong to a canine family iirc.

 

[ultraviolet]

Uh actually

Although hyenas bear some physical resemblance to canids, they make up a separate biological family that is most closely related to Herpestidae (the family of mongooses and meerkats), thereby falling within the Feliformia. All species have a distinctly bear-like gait due to their front legs being longer than their back legs.

I know, I'm just being an ass. :) Sorry.

No you're not! xDDD

 

[xkze]

Hyenas belong to a canine family iirc.

actually Hyenas are more closely related to cats than they are to canines
they're most closely related to Aardwolves and Civets, but they are indeed in the Feliformia suborder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feliformia

 

[Tarvos]

Oh ok, my bad. But cats and dogs do battle for food. Maybe I am confusing a hyena with a jackal or whatever.

 

[xkze]

don't worry, I didn't know that either until I looked it up
I was always under the assumption that they were more canid too

 

[Tarvos]

well jackals are canid and they are in that area too, I guess it's that then

 

[Ayame]

uh no that is artificial selection

Thanks for pointing that out. I meant to mention that it's related to natural selection in that it sort of demonstrates how things evolve over time, helped along by humans or not or something trivial like that. But I didn't convey that at all.

 

[EvilCrazyMonkey]

re: not proven

Evolution is almost surely true.
Now shut up; creationism is nowhere near that.

 

[see ya]

But doesn't even artificial selection work on the same mechanic as natural selection? Either way, it's some genetic traits being favored over others and being allowed to proliferate, while unfavored traits are culled.

 

[EvilCrazyMonkey]

But doesn't even artificial selection work on the same mechanic as natural selection? Either way, it's some genetic traits being favored over others and being allowed to proliferate, while unfavored traits are culled.

They are not favored because it is impossible to define that term.

They increase the animal's survival rate (which allows them to reproduce instead of rot, passing on the good genes to their offspring, who have a better chance of surviving, etc.).
If a god simply killed off those with genes that would leave the animal dead anyway, it would have the same general effect, yes, but it technically wouldn't be their increased chance of survival helping them, and therefore not the same mechanic to work off of.

edit: also to add to my last post

Gravity is just a theory; should it be completely thrown out because there is an infinitesimal chance it is incorrect?

 

[Zuu]

I don't think some of these young creationist folk realize what evolution is

it's not the change of an INDIVIDUAL ORGANISM

it is the change over long periods of time in POPULATIONS

creationism came from "where did we come from? and the animals and plants? where did it all begin?" then they saw the sun burning in the sky, great and majestic, life-giving and flesh-warming, and said, "hey, I bet it was that thing!" they stuck a name on it, made some stories about how things came to be thanks to the sun god, and voila.

evolution has quite a bit of evidence backing it up. of course it's not completely proven. but it makes a WHOLE lot of sense and clears up a bunch of stuff...

BY THE WAY this topic is stupid because evolution does not challenge creation (though most evolutionists probably don't believe in a god). we have abiogenesis for that. 8)

edit: let me specify. non-human evolution does not challenge creation. human evolution does if you believe that the humans that your god created... are the modern ones today. which is probably true if you're one of those "the earth has only been around for about, oh I don't know, let's say 2000 years" types.

or if you think god created every single little species of animal. which is just too much goddamned work. every played spore? christ. imagine that on a 100000x scale.

edit2: to share a funny story. i live in a very Baptist part of Texas. pretty much the most Baptist city ever, actually. so you can imagine how an atheist might be smothered here. so an atheist and agnostic friend of mine did a project on teaching evolution to the science kids last year, doing a extremely thorough job. they gave quizzes, in which they allowed students to ask questions about evolution in any aspect on the back. which they answered.

... now... I don't know if this was fed to them by their parents, their pastors, or they arrived to these conclusions on their own idiotic tangents, but here are some examples.

"where is the proof that we came from monkeys?"

"how can you deny the bible like that? the bible is true."

and my favorite. "how do you believe in evolution? it's stupid. we didn't come from monkeys. if we came from monkeys, what did mountains evolve from? what did the sky evolve from? what did rainbows evolve from? you can see the flaws." something to that effect. but I did not make up the mountain-sky-rainbow argument.

i'll just let that sink in

 

[see ya]

They are not favored because it is impossible to define that term.

They increase the animal's survival rate (which allows them to reproduce instead of rot, passing on the good genes to their offspring, who have a better chance of surviving, etc.).
If a god simply killed off those with genes that would leave the animal dead anyway, it would have the same general effect, yes, but it technically wouldn't be their increased chance of survival helping them, and therefore not the same mechanic to work off of.

Well, I was talking more about dog breeders than a God, but meh, you're right. It's still the same general effect, though, just a different method of selection.