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In science proof doesn't exist, atleast not beyond reasonable doubt, and evolution is beyond reasonable doubt.

I can understand why you might disagree given the amount of nonsense spewed on the subject (especially and rather shamefully in the US, where one expects better). But you are mistaken, evolution has mountains of evidence supporting it, is inevitable given the properties of cellular replication and genetics, and acts as the unifiying theory of biology, "Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the context of evolution"

The book you site and those like it by Behe, Dembski et al. have all been completely demolished by the scientific community, most raise the same tired arguments that were shot down decades ago. They are motivated by those who view evolutionary theory as a threat to their religious ideology, rather than by objective analysis of the theory and the data available.

It is highly telling of the quality of the arguments presented that there is no record within peer reviewed scientific literature.

For reference here is a review of one of Milton's earlier books by an evolutionary biologist - Dawkins (granted if you know him and you're religious chances are you hate him, but his views are typical with regards to the validity of creation "science" vs. evolution).

http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins...ews/1992-08-28shattering_the_myths.shtml

Infact just flicking through that review it's obvious that even with my A-level biology i could refute the arguments presented in that particular book, that should give you an idea of how informed many of these authors are.

A review of the book you mention can be found here:

http://www.2think.org/darwinism.shtml

Both of these links provide highly critical reviews i am sure that you will find just as many positive reviews (though invariably by people who do not understand evolutionary biology) that might be worth reading for a comparison.

If you wish to continue a discussion about evolution we should really make a new thread since this one already has already been derailed once. .

This is supposedly a thread about terrorists and GWB. It has wavered into various topics that have nothing to do with either.

Like evolution.

I am on record as doubting both evolution and Creationism, the big bang theory, the so called third law of thermodynamics, that the world is running out of oil or is overpopulated, and many other things that are passed off as "beyond reasonable doubt." I am far more skeptical about a great many things.

NOT. Even Dr. Crick doubts there has been enough time for evolution to have produced the results we can all see around us. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Can you tell me anything you know about evolution for certain that can be proved by standard experiment? Any one thing --- that is absolutely true, that you would stake your life on? Anything about it that is absolutely beyond doubt? I frankly doubt it. For most scientists belief in evolution is accepted as a matter of faith not facts.

Unifying theory? Here are just a few problems:
1. extrapolating generalizations from limited artificial selection research to megaevolution: that a new species or class of organisms can evolve from another species. Not proven, and not likely to be. No evidence.

2. the observed hierarchy found in nature is the reverse of that expected by evolutionary theory; simpler animals were found to reproduce in greater numbers and were more resistant to variations in the environment.

3. Individual survival after birth tends to be mostly the result of chance; in most cases natural selection eliminates only the sick and the deformed.

4. Environmental variations which cause evolution-temperature, the population of other animals, and the surrounding plant life, all of which have been fairly stable for eons-can result in only very limited degrees and types of changes, not one species from another.

5. The natural selection hypothesis involves circular reasoning; an extant species survived because it was fit, and must be fit because it obviously has survived. It does not answer where life came from nor does it explain diversity of species.

6. The commonality of apparent over design, or the existence of complex mechanisms that do not effect survival, but may add much to the quality of life, also creates a severe problem for the natural selection theory.

You can't successfully refute any of these criticisms. And I'll add one more, the most important one, geological evidence of mass extinction events combined with fossil records which indicate a profusion of not just single organisms but whole ecosystems within the blink of an eyelash in geological time following such events. Evolution were it possible would not have had enough time to proceed and in any case the fossil evidence is against it.

It is in fact rather the reverse. Nothing the "scientific community" as you call it can completely demolish the questions which threaten to topple its own materialist ideology. Aristotle was a dolt and you are following in his errant footsteps.

Indeed. Peer review is a form of inquisition or censorship which keeps disturbing ideas from being discussed in the open where they might be easily refuted. It would be beneficial to science (and the rest of us) to dispense with all of it.

I'm quite familiar with Dawkins. He is a self professed "turd slinger" who says he will do anything to preserve the status of the evolutionary theory. That doesn't mean he will or can succeed.

The question of how "informed" or "indoctrinated" many of these authors are should be more open to debate.

The author or authors of this very poor, jeering review, full of irrelevancies was never identified. I\m not impressed.

It is always and everywhere convenient to say to someone who dismisses a popular theory that just doesn't understand it. Moreover it is usually stated in a condescending way. Fine. I'll just say that \I understand enough to have made up my mind that the theory has no basis in fact and isn\t worth pursuing further. Same with Creationism, the big bang, etc.

Now how about getting more about terrorists and GWB.

Fair enough.

Ok... uh you should probably know that there is no 3rd law of thermodynamics.... And if you're talking about the 2nd law then you've chosen probably the most solid element in ALL of science.

Hmm.. Crick was an ardent defendant of evolution and also happened to be highly critical of religion i find it quite hard to believe that he doubted its viability. A much more likely explanation is you have read a fabrication or misquote of him. Do you have a reference?

That mutation can cause phenotypic change, and that beneficial traits spread through a population, that mutation can confer new functionality. That's a reasonable start.

There is no absolute truth in science, there nothing that is 'absolutely' beyond doubt. There is only beyond 'reasonable' doubt. I would say that the theory of common descent achieved via a process of variation and selection is beyond reasonable doubt.

My experience with scientists runs contrary to that. (Edited to remove arrogance :b: ) Most scientists seem to buy into evolution because it makes perfect sense and its backed by evidence, from the genotype from the fossil record, from lab based experiments.

Indeed.

That's not a problem. Artificial selection is indeed evidence but its not the only evidence, more over it is a valid approach. It is reasonable to expect that if lots of successive small changes occur the end result is equivalent to a big change.

See immediately by this statement you demonstrate that you don't understand what evolution actually says. I don't mean to sound aggressive or patronising. But it is so key because it's ALWAYS the case that those who doubt evolution don't understand what it actually says.

Evolutionary theory does NOT "expect" more complex organisms to be necessarily more reproductively successfull.

If there is selective pressure pushing an organism to become more complex then that's what will happen, but the reverse is true as well, if there is selective pressure favour simplicity then that will be favoured.

Whether having lots of complex functionality is worth the increased metabolic cost and lower reproductive rate is dependent on the ecological niche (the 'environment') the organism is in.

Damnit i'm not being clear enough. It's hard you see to explain evolutionary theory over a message board .

It is true that chance plays a large factor but it doesn't matter as long as there is very small bias in favour of certain traits then statistically speaking they will be more likely to spread than other traits. An organism with a usefull mutation will have a higher probability of reproducing than an organism without said mutation. That is all one needs for evolutionary theory.

Some usefull mutations will die out through chance but those that don't those that make it through several generations will spread through the population.

1. Temperaturess vary widely across evolutionary timescales (ice ages) and across geometry (The saraha is hot, the poles are cold).

2. Environment in an evolutionary context also incorporates the surrounding organisms ie. the ecosystem. A bunch of animals from somewhere else turning up can thus create a completely new environment complete various selective pressures.

3. (And most importantly)

You raise another well known misunderstanding

Namely that to go from one species to another one needs a "big" change, you don't, there are no big changes, only small ones.

The point at which the ancestors of cats and dogs were considered seperate species was the point at which they became reproductively incompatible. If you have two groups within a species that are diverging (due too differing pressures), then at some point they become so dissimilar they can no longer interbreed. Bingo new species. (Though they will still look very similar). As time goes by the two species will become more and more distinct due to continuing environmental differences and genetic drift.

It is important to note though that the point of speciation is just another tiny phenotypic change.

Evolution does not seek to explain where life came from that is the field of abiogensis, evolution is equally compatible with a God snapping his fingers creating the first organism, or it emerging through complex chemical reactions on prebiotic Earth.

Evolution on the other hand DOES explain diversity, evolutionary principles show EXACTLY how biological diversity can arise. The mechanism of selection and variation can be shown to produce functionality through simulations (as a result computer programmers use "genetic algorithms" to solve problems, mirroring the process of evolution).

There are no severe problems for evolutionary theory, but its interesting that you mention over design, overdesign has easily advantages namely redundancy.

But what is interesting is that evolutionary theory is blind, it doesn't know where its going so whilst we would expect it to be able to produce fantastic complexity given its power, we would also expect examples where it looks stupid from a human point of view. And that's exactly what we find, there are numerous examples of "bad design" found in nature, from the position of the urethra causing prostate problems, to the wiring of nerves and the height of trees wasting resources.

But you see, i can.

I can only assume you are talking about the Cambrian explosion. There is very very simple answer to the Cambrian explosion: If you have life merrily evolving away, but that life lacks an exoskeletal (ie. its soft). Then it can't leave any fossils, so what do you expect to see when exskeletons first evolve? Suddenly you will find massess of fossils and none before. Because for the first time the organisms can leave fossils!

To claim that the fossil record speaks out against evolution is folly of great measure. The reason why all paleontologists believe in evolution is because the field that they actual spend their lives studying shows it so clearly. They spend as much time arguing with creationists as biologists do!

Ok...

Peer review is a great asset it means we are able to seperate usefull science from nonsense. I will grant you that truly revolutionary ideas can be delayed by peer review because scientists tend to be quite conservative. But if they are sound ideas they always get through, relativity compeletely changed people's ideas, it wasn't rejected. Quantum theory didn't just our change our ideas it smashed them to bits.

Ok.. so you don't like Dawkins . (though i'd disagree with your discription of him)

But with regards to evolution they NEVER EVER do. I know because i've read what they have to say on numerous occasions and i've debated with them on numerous occasions.

If you wish you could understand evolution, there are lots of popular books around that explain it, i would reccommend one of Goulds if you dislike Dawkins.

Disregarding style i thought the substance of that review is quite good. It does correctly refute some of the arguments (the same arguments one sees again and again in creationist literature) presented.

But you see i know, i catagorically KNOW that you don't understand it, because i've just read what you think about it. I can help you understand it if you wish, or (and i would recommend this) you could get out a pop. sci. book from library.

I hope i haven't come off as too patronising.

Regards
Moonbat

I'm taking a break from my Saturday chores again. I'm glad I popped in here.

Dave,

I personally very much appreciate your post. I am an R&D Engineer by profession and believe strongly in skeptical inquiry. Further, by belief, I am not a scientific reductionist.

Besides Quantum theory as cited by Moonbat, there's the celebrated Godel's Theorem which I imagine you're familiar with. It's hard to accept any scientific theory at face value after that Theorem surfaced.

In any event, a pure scientist judges a theory by utility alone, ready to replace it when something with more utility comes along.

Interestingly, there's a theory being promulgated now that proposes to replace the big bang theory with the notion of an infinitely cyclic process of expansions and compressions.

But I just want to alert you that you have a kindred spirit in Moonbat. My view is that you two are just brainstorming, devil's advocating each other along the way, as Moonbat and I did on another thread. I found that dialogue to easily be one of the most satisfying of those I've had in the Coffee Room to date because we were just brainstorming, neither one looking to win an argument per se.

Please don't either of you stop discussing such issues out of a personal misunderstanding.

Moonbat,

A few points regarding our other dialogue. My projection example was misleading. I agree that the input space is unknowable. I merely believe that our output spaces are (to use suggestive terminology from Linear Spaces) homomorphic to the input space as well as to each others' output spaces. That, to me, enables consistency between our observations of the input space: that is, the "real world."

I trust you had Linear Spaces at least back in College. If not, you'll find isomorphisms and homomorphisms defined early in any textbook on the subject. I find it very useful for discussing such philosophical questions, as long as it's not taken too literally (for example I am NOT implying that the transformations are linear).

Isomorphism is easy to explain. It means that for every object in the input space there is an equivalent object in the output space. Further there is an equivalent operation between objects in the output space for each of the operations in the input space. A simple example is real numbers together with the multiplication operation in the input space and logarithms together with addition operation in the output space.

Homomorphism, which is what's pertinent here, is not nearly as easy for me to explain in words without leading to misunderstandings.

Among other things, these notions, by implication, address the idea that out worlds, including our qualia, need only be equivalent in some broad sense for people to have meaningful (that is, non-chaotic) interaction within it.

To be continued another time. I don't want to divert this thread more than I have already.

I believe this thread has now gone into outer space...

MusicMagellan thanks for the input, i'll have to go read up about homomorphism now.

Welcome back! We missed your insightful posts.

I'm sorry, what the heck was that about? Why is he posting in here?

incorrect

ever heard of partial-birth abortion that Kerry holds so dearley (in front of pro-abortion crowds anyway)? You know, where they take the baby halfway out of the mother, slit its head open while it's crying, suck its brains out with a high powered medical vaccum, crush the skull, and deposit the corpse of the infant in a sterilized garbage?

Apparantly not.

And besides, to the thread starter, if you're worried about the terrorists rejoicing and sitting there unhindered in their murderous efforts, why the heck don't you get YOUR country to do something about it? :rolleyes:

Well, 89th key, it seems that you switched back to "ignore mode"... I hope I was able to make you see where you were wrong.

Oh jeez nunatax, I came back here after the weekend and saw that this thread lost interest, and anyone reading it could see we were going in circles.

You dont disagree or agree with me, and you couldn't disprove any of my 'reasons' for my position...so it wasn't going anywhere, if you would like to continue, I'll be more than happy...

My opinion + your indecision = well, you figure it out.

After all, you chose to ignore the main reason I disagree with homosexual marriage, the selective discrimination...if you would like to continue, please address that issue. We all have our unproven theories about the origin of homosexuality, but since they are here, we might as well be pragmatic and discuss relevant issues.

Look at everything you are saying! Here are the facts:

A) A pure white couple will NOT have a black kid.
B) A species cant survive from homosexual behavior
C) Nature articles about animals and altruistic "lifes" have no relevance to homosexuals, especially when they are all theories anyway!
D) If you have an island full of homos, you cant survive, refer to B.

What is so hard? Those are all true. You are dodging the issue, look at those 4 quick points i just made and tell me how any of those are wrong.

And why are you dodging the selective discrimination issue, because you dont 'care' about it? I thought you said thats not a good reason to stop debating...

Hmmm....

It's like a dog trying to catch its tail.. :rolleyes:

Exactly my point sarah!

(even if that was pointed at me, haha)

We're going in circles and she wont address the issue with substance to it.

Lunch time! Is it dinner time in England?

Nearly.. I'm so tired though, I just want to sleep! Curry tonight

Gee, I wonder why we are going in circles... :rolleyes:

A. Exactly, and you used that to "prove" that a heterosexual couple cannot have a homosexual child if it would be genetic, and that therefor it is impossible that homosexuality has a genetic cause. And THAT is plain wrong, THAT is what I pointed out.

B. Did you even read what I posted in my previous message? Or was it just too complicated for you to understand?

C. The Nature article was not about animals, it was about PEOPLE (more proof that you didn't read it, or perhaps you only "skimmed" it? :rolleyes: )

And the altruistic "theory" is actually not really a theory anymore, but a widely accepted natural mechanism.

D. Please READ what I wrote about it.

Something extra :
Put one hundred altruistic individuals on an island, and theoretically speaking, they won't survive either. Fact is, that's not how it is in real life. In real life, a population has a limited number of altruistic individuals. Natural mechanisms prevent that a population gets too many altruistic individuals.



It is you mister, who is dodging the issue. You are dodging practically everything I'm saying here. Your "4 quick points" are true, but the conclusions you draw from those points are RIDICULOUS, and that's what I'm pointing out, I think that is pretty clear if you read my posts.

Please clarify, I don't see a connection here to anything I have said in the past.

Im not dodging anything you are saying, they are good arguments for your side, but at the same time, they dont refute any of those 4 points I made.

Those 4 points came up by the way through out many hundreds of posts on this topic, so some might seem random, and im not completely basing my theory on any of them...just in case you were wondering why they were so random.

But you admit that they are true, and I say that because I dont feel like going over and over, over them. That brings me to your last sentence...

...you were making fun of me earlier in that other post when I said I didn't feel like talking about it anymore because of the 'carosel' effect, and then when you said you dont want talk about the selective discrimination issue because you dont care...and I said that is unfair. I dont mind if you dont want to talk about it, but you were making fun of me earlier for not wanting to talk about the homo-argument in that other thread.

If those 4 points are done, and you dont want to talk about the selective discrimination issue, then I dont know what else we have to talk about.

But I do thank you for an intelligent conversation thusfar about the issue, most people (no matter what the stance) will not hold an intelligent conversation about such a controversial subject.

*astonishingly deep sigh*

I’ll keep this post short...

You said the following :
Now, after all I’ve told you, do you still think that that is a flawless comparison?
A simple yes or no answer will do.
And please, act like a man this time and don’t delete that first part of your statement again.