Good evening (from my point of view).
[Edit: Removed typos, cleared some stuff up. Also, I point out problems on both siedes of the fence. Please bear with me, I am a little tired]
If I may participate ? Feeling a bit bored at the moment, and I guess sharing some thoughts of mine might be ok.
If you want to make an appeal to authority, fine. But then you also have to bow out of the debate, and sit on the sidelines.
Not that important, but I detest the idea that the views of someone making a fallacious argument can automatically be rejected. You might agree, I guess.
Who or what created the creator?
The same question can be asked of all the theories on "your" side of the issue. For instance...
Classical Darwinian evolution needs life to already exist before it can operate. So what made the first life?
One of the beautiful ideas in science is that different theories are employed to tackle non-related issues. The ID variety of creationism (and I hasten to add that I am not refering to you with this) tries to explain speciation by amploying a creator, which by their own definition must be more complex than his creation and therefore also by their definition has to have been created by someone even more complex and so on. There are several problems in posting this as science, as your knowledge of the scientific method has certainly told you. I'd suggest accepting that the question comes directly out of the hotbed of ID/evolution debates and might not have been inappropriate as an argument here.
The big bang needs an infinitesmally dense, hot, small, compact singularity containing all matter and energy in the universe to explode. So what created that? On and on.
That is the 'beautiful' part I was refering to - evolution does not explain this, and doesn't need to. please look up 'abiogenesis'. To use an anology - if you drop a stone it will fall. That the question how the stone came to be in your hand is not explained by the theory of gravity doesn't invalidate this theory in the context of explaining the actual fall. The theory of evolution by natural selection does not explain the origin of life, but the basis for the development of live and the split into a multitude of species sharing characteristics across a broad spectrum.
If your point is that we don't have all the answers, I agree with you. You don't either. None of us do.
Your use of this construct sounds much like a fallacious argument I heard a few times before, but I might be wrong. But just in case: That there is no human being that has every answer to every subject does not mean that everyone is missing the same answers or that every viewpoint is automatically equally informed. It also does not follow that arguments you do not like can just be ignored (which it seems you want to do here).
3. You are arbitrarily and irrationally picking a demarcation point (biology) so as to try to divorce yourself from the "infinite regress." I've often pondered why it is so obvious to evolutionists that an internal combustion engine was designed and built, yet so inobvious to them that a biological machine was. I think it comes down to a bias against highly-advanced nanomolecular composite materials (skin, bone, etc). In other words, if I were made of metal, wires, plastic, etc. and spoke in a monotone robotic voice, you'd think I was designed and built. The difference is the materials used, and the technology in the materials.
The reaseon we know that a car was built by a complex being is that we can watch them do it and talk to the creators. That is a fact. Scientists like facts. Please introduce me to the guy that made plant cells.
To add - that there are complex things made from complex beings does not mean that complexity cannot arise from simple origins. The hypothesis that complexity can only arise from complexity can be falsified. Take a mandelbrot set (arising from fairly simple math), a solar system (again, while the math can be far more complex the pretty simple formulae in Newtons time are pretty sufficient to explain the complexity of a solar system) or a snowflake, or self-organizing phospholipids (they do that when thrown together, very cool indeed, building a cell wall withtout interference out of simple molecules...) and so on and so on.
Evolution is NOT random chance.
Evolution is most certainly based on random chance. Yes, there is a mechanial process operating over that random chance (natural selection), but the basis is random chance. If you don't know that, then you don't know your own theory.
Good that you concede the point to him - he is obviously right. Yes, one basis of evolution is random mutation. But the "natural selection" part is really important. A (very simple) analogy - you throw twenty six-sided dies. Every time a die shows a six you leave it on the table, and throw the others again. Now would you agree that after a few thousand throws the outcome is pretty clear and only partly based on a random event ? One thing to point out - I am NOT making the point that evolution needs a designer. Selection can of course occur by non-complex influences. Simple things that kill you or make you ill, for example. Please also note that the example ignores inheritance to simplify things.
An animal didn't just happen randomly. It adapted(succesfully) to its enviroment and in the process changed.
LOL. Because you say it did? Sounds like magic.
Not an argument. By the way - animals do not adapt, to point out a common mistake made by your opponent. They are adapted.
Evolution can be most certainly observed. A good example are bacteria. You put a bunch of E.Collis(the most populous species) in two containers. Then you slightly change the enviroment of one of the containers. The bacteria will adaps and after some time will be genetically different than the bacteria in the container that did not change.
Nope. No evolution took place.
Your actual argument being ? Flat out denial is not sufficient. Species adapt to their surroundings, evolution.
In fact, the fossil record shows all life appearing instantly. NO NO NO. The fossil records do not say that at all.
It most certainly does.
Ah, the famous misquote of the Cambrian Explosion. Please read the actual science, not the tabloid version. Start with talk.origins.org, follow to the papers.
Like I said, I'm not here to spoonfeed anything to you. You either know the subject you are trying to argue, or you don't. My recommendation is to be as informed on a subject as possible before having an opinion on it, or arguing or debating it.
Good advice. But I have to admit that I am not sure that it is sufficient. It is usually not enough to read the books, you have to understand them. Please see some of my comments above.
What I just stated to you is not controversial. Charles Darwin himself was aware of the problem, and even wrote about it. Where?
LOL. See above statement.
That good old CD discussed problems with his theory only demonstrates an integrity I sometimes miss in other texts (not refering to this board!). Funny thing is that it is of no consequence what he said at that time - science moved on a bit and found answers for many problems, sometimes even mistakes in his texts. Imagine that - science actually corrects for the human factor ! Who would have thought... (please insert here my 'beauty' statement). Oh - 'CD said so' is an appeal to authority, by the way.
Even if he said that then that doesn't mean life appeared instantly. It means fossil records are a tricky thing since you know... they are millions of years old.
Right. Anything that doesn't support evolution can be dismissed with a wave of the hand as being a "tricky thing." But if the fossil record HAD supported evolution, the tree of life, etc. boy, you'd never hear the end of it.
Apparently you accuse the whole scientific field involved in the study of evolution of cherry picking. I guess you are not aware of it, but to a scientist this is a very grave insult. Also, where is your point ? Just shouting 'cherry-picking' isn't one.
And the admittance that a dataset is complex and problematic to analyse is not cherry-picking. If you want to have an idea why, just download a genome set (also complex data sets) (start small, something procaryotic should do) and have fun.
Now, it is perfectly fine if you like stories, and if you want to believe in stories. Just don't ever confuse stories with science, and don't ever try to pass off one for the other. Just stories? Bull****. If you were to have a letter of the head paleontologist that stated (within the context!) that these are stories which I strongly doubt this is still no argument against evolution.
Right! Nothing is an argument against evolution! I understand that.
Haven't heard one from you - you don't even seem to try. So far I haven't heard a good one from anyone. Which is a pity - somebody falsifying evolution in my lifetime ? What an exciting idea! I guess if it does there would be one demonstrating a reversal of translation first - that might be the way to go (Read a nice study last year connected to this which tried to argue in favour of Lamarck, but sadly didn't have the data to support this.). But I am not holding my breath.
Toppling old theories is the dream of any scientist worth his salt ! By the way - scientists like to give prizes to guys (and gals) that do that. Proving already suspected things is very boring and mundane. Proving old theories wrong, or offering more parsimonious explanations for for the same dataset ? Exciting !
You can do the exact same thing with nonliving things. You can have 5 white rocks and 5 black rocks. You can then destroy the 5 white rocks, leaving only the 5 black rocks. I guess you must be jumping for joy at this moment. You just made a new discovery, didn't you? Non-living things evolve just like living things do, apparently! LOL!
I REALLY suggest you try to understand the theory of evolution before you try to argue against it. Wow. You claim you read Gould. Please start again. Failure to understand doesn't mean you are right.
Cheers,
G
