Tracing the whale’s trail [Evolution trial, daily thread for 15 Oct]

York Daily Record [Penna] ^ | 15 October 2005 | LAURI LEBO

[Doctor Stochastic]

Now that's a Tale of a Whale.

[js1138]

A truly scientific attempt to do exactly this would begin by examining the age of the earth and reviewing the scientific techniques used by geologists to determine the ages of rocks and fossils. Curiously, Pandas does nothing of the sort. In fact, not a word can be found anywhere in Pandas regarding the age of the earth or geological ages recognized by earth scientists. Ignoring the age of the earth while attempting to teach students natural history makes about as much sense as trying to teach American history without telling students that the American revolution began in 1775, which is to say, no sense at all.

Which brings up my own unscientific survey of FReeper ID advocates. A couple months ago I asked any ID advocate posting on FR to explain what they would teach in biology class after they got through teaching their opposition to evolution. No one responded, except with the usual criticism of evolution, which takes about 30 seconds to recite.

So let's hear it from the ID crowd. How old is the earth?

[King Prout]

pasta be upon you

[phantomworker]

I, for one, have never had a problem with evolution AND intelligent design being one process. How long is one day in GOD time?

Agree. And even if the two are not 'one process', it is conceivable that The Hand of God (ID) has some influence over evolution and what evolves over time. Does evolution necessarily have to be random?

[King Prout]

mutation appears to be random - ie: all evidence points to mutation being random, none indicates directed causation.

selection, on the other hand, is far from random. There is no positive evidence that some "higher being" monkeyed around with it, though.

[Junior]

Evolution is not, and has never been, random. The individual mutations might appear randomly, but the selection process is far from that.

[kaotic133]

There isn't any evidence for Evolution.

Sorry sir, theres a ton of evidence for evolution. There isn't evidence for abio-genisis - that is, the first transition of non-living materials into living materials.

Intelligent design is not in any way conflicted with evolution; rather, intelligent design must only compete with abio-genisis, a theory about how the first life form arose.

Evolution has TONS of evidence. Abio-genisis has NO evidence.

A smart proponent of ID could realize that evolution may very well be one of God's many miracles. Trying to fight evolution just results in making the cause of ID look backwards. You might as well try to tell me the sun revolves around the flat Earth, and its always been that way since God made it so 7000 years ago.

If you really believe that, you shouldn't be using a computer because all science is just a lie propogated by the devil in the war for human souls.

[BenLurkin]

Glad you recognize that the decision at trial will not be a ruling on the scientific merit of either of these two theories, for it cannot be.

[curiosity]

Intelligent design is not in any way conflicted with evolution;

According to the way its main proponents define it, it is. They claim certain biological organs and biochemical machines and processes are too complex to have evolved through natural selection.

In a sense, their use of the term "intelligent design" is an absue of language. One could just as easily label as intelligent design the belief that God intelligently designed the laws of nature so as a creature like Man would eventually arrise through purely natural processes. That is what I believe (and it doesn't necessarily conflict with abiogensis). Unfortunately, however, this is not what most people have in mind when they hear the words, "intelligent design."

[phantomworker]

One could just as easily label as intelligent design the belief that God intelligently designed the laws of nature so as a creature like Man would eventually arrise through purely natural processes.

Isn't that like putting the cart before the horse? The concept of God is Man's creation.

[phantomworker]

One could just as easily label as intelligent design the belief that God intelligently designed the laws of nature so as a creature like Man would eventually arrise through purely natural processes.

Isn't that like putting the cart before the horse? The concept of God is Man's creation.

[curiosity]

Isn't that like putting the cart before the horse? The concept of God is Man's creation.

I don't understand your objection. Would you mind clarifying it?

[phantomworker]

I'm not sure it is an objection. Did God create the evolutionary thread that produced Man or did Man produce the concept of God? What do you think?

[curiosity]

God created the evolutionary thread.

[EasyBOven]

Proof is different than evidence. When a jury convicts someone of murder, they never get proof. Proof in that case would require for the entire jury to witness the murder themselves. Video won't even do it. In the case of speciation, which is the idea that is really on trial here, the jury is not still out. Thousands upon thousands of scientists, inquisitive minds that truly do want to poke holes in any theory (which by the way, is too often confused with a hypothesis by laymen) have decided that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of speciation.

Did all of these people see humans and chimpanzees descend from a common ancestor? No. That doesn't mean that there isn't evidence enough to convince anyone beyond a reasonable doubt that they did.

See some evidence I posted previously and my brief explanation here.

[cornelis]

Conceptualization is a product of human intelligence. One of the features of conceptualization is the communication about the reality of things. The goal is to come to a true conceptualization of other things. Some conceptualization is self-referential. Some is not. But in both cases, it is still a product of human intelligence. So, the fact that we produce concept does not negate the possibility of it being true or false.

Yesterday's talk on these threads was interesting to me because of a claim that went like this: if my arguments or statements or concepts of evolution appear to be in any way fallacious, that is not the fault of the process of evolution, that's simply the fault of our language. There's something fishy about that.

[cornelis]

evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of speciation

You could look at it that way. Ever since the Englightenment there's been some new light shed on the relativity of things. It still quite evident to me that the sun revolves around me and I need no further proof.

[EasyBOven]

The believers in ID do not categorize their beliefs that way (God designed the mechanism). They argue Simultaneous Creation, that each species was created completely intact by an intelligent designer.

The actual mechanism for speciation, evolution through mutation and natural selection, is actually not the real idea on trial here, and may later be proven wrong through science. The idea on trial is common descent, which has a gigantic mountain of evidence backing it up from several different fields of study. Time of speciation has been correlated between several different lines of evidence: Animal DNA, Viral DNA fragments inserted into animal DNA, Mitochondrial DNA, and the Fossil Record. For a recent speciation, like humans and chimps, the mutation rates of various DNA types are well understood and the extrapolated times based on observed mutations match exactly with the fossil record.

[phantomworker]

That is a good explanation. Thank you.

I wonder if concepts like speciation versus whether God created each species or not is similar to the debate over "Free Will" and "The Will of God".

Does Man (or evolution) have a free will, in that they have control over their destiny. Or is Man (or evolution) totally under the control of God? I believe this is also hotly debated in some circles.

One argument goes: If Man is totally dependent upon God's will, then Man has no incentive to be competitive. And we all know what that leads to...

[dread78645]

God created the evolutionary thread.

AdminModDidit placemark