Posted on 02/16/2015 9:01:33 AM PST by JimSEA
If you think you understand it, you don't know nearly enough about it
It will soon be 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, arguably the most important book ever written. In it, Darwin outlined an idea that many still find shocking - that all life on Earth, including human life, evolved through natural selection.
Darwin presented compelling evidence for evolution in On the Origin and, since his time, the case has become overwhelming. Countless fossil discoveries allow us to trace the evolution of today's organisms from earlier forms. DNA sequencing has confirmed beyond any doubt that all living creatures share a common origin. Innumerable examples of evolution in action can be seen all around us, from the pollution-matching peppered moth to fast-changing viruses such as HIV and H5N1 bird flu. Evolution is as firmly established a scientific fact as the roundness of the Earth.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Good article. Well-balanced
The first statement is correct — if you think you know what is meant by “evolution”, you don’t.
Always hilarious to see an article trying to “educate” by totally mixing up concepts.
Like mixing “evolution” and “natural selection” with the moth thing — where there were two colors of moth, and over time one population overtook the other because of changes in environment.
Might was well say that fur coats are proof of “evolution”, because people who buy fur coats are more likely to be found in the cold north in the winter, while people in swimsuits become non-existent.
One thing we can all agree on — evolution of creation: “all living creatures share a common origin”.
What is hilarious is how little that would make sense if evolution were the sole mechanism. Why would you expect that there’d only be ONE possible type of life, and that one type would then be repeated over time, and would CHANGE over time, such that we’d end up with a myriad of unique species, but they’d ALL be identically structured?
When I build for the Lego train show, I have trains, and buildings, and a lake, and cars, and people, and animals, and lamps, and a fountain. EVERYTHING is made of Lego bricks. Even though it could also have been built with Megablocks, or from plastic kits, like the other model trains.
But my whole world was created, and that is why it all is built of the same thing.
Climate change: What we do – and don't – know
There is much we do not understand about Earth's climate. That is hardly surprising, given the complex interplay of physical, chemical and biological processes that determines what happens on our planet’s surface and in its atmosphere. Despite this, we can be certain about some things. For a start, the planet is warming, and human activity is largely responsible. But how much is Earth on course to warm by? What will the global and local effects be? How will it affect our lives? In these articles, Michael Le Page sifts through the evidence to provide a brief guide to what we currently do – and don't – know about the planet's most burning issue.
Climate change: It's even worse than we thought
Five years ago, the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change painted a gloomy picture of our planet’s future. As climate scientists gather evidence for the next report, due in 2014, Michael Le Page gives seven reasons why things are looking even grimmer.
“Evolution” doesn’t EXPLAIN anything.
“Evolution” is a word that essentially means “a collection of scientific observations used to create a story of everything, most of which is guesswork”.
Evolution can’t tell you what you will see tomorrow. Evolution can’t prove what happened a billion years ago, or a million years ago. Evolution fails to predict the next discovery, or the next archeological dig.
You might as well “believe in Evolution”, because it takes real faith.
On the other hand, you’d be a fool not to believe THAT (note not “believe in”) viruses mutate, that characteristics are selected for over time, or a host of other observable scientific realities.
Maybe if they keep “practicing”, they will figure it out.
Nobody “Practices” the theory of relativity, or how to obey the law of gravity.
That’s the difference between science and evolution.
Evolution is to be believe IN, not to be believed THAT.
“A few creationists are honest enough to admit ...”
That’s a pretty arrogant way to start your comment, Jim. Your assumptions that God is irrelevant or non-existent are pretty obvious.
I am not a scientist. I am not a biologist nor chemist. Having said that, I don’t get why “evolution” is usually equated with explaining the origin of all life. It explains the adaptation within species. It explains why some species may have died out, but it doesn’t explain how life came to be.
I don’t think it adequately explains or proves that evolution accounts for plant life becoming a mollusk or a fish or a mammal. Or, how a fish became a lizard, or how a lizard became a bird or a cow.
The article states that DNA prove that all life came from a single source - if true, couldn’t that also just imply that there was a common Creator? And, doesn’t the complexity of DNA and RNA demonstrate that random, unguided selection or mutations alone cannot account for certain species to simply “evolve” themselves into existence? That certain mutations would have to happen simultaneously to create the eye or ear, for example? And, aren’t the odds of that happening astronomical?
I am sure I will be dissed by Natural Darwinians that such questions are ignorant and my intelligence lacking - that all such things have been accounted for long ago.
And, I do believe that naturalistic Darwinism does not account for moral absolutes and can indeed lead to amorality. Even if “survival of the fittest” was not Darwin’s term, isn’t it also true that the idea that all life can be accounted for by “natural” mechanisms CAN lead to the idea that the value of one organism is no greater or less than any other, or that “meaning” attributed to existence has any validity over “non-meaning”. Therefore, why is one morality that values “strength” over a morality that values mercy or altruism any better or more moral than the other?
Science doesn’t do “God”. Among the base assumptions of science is methodological naturalism. That is, material effects must have material causes. The methods of science simply do not work otherwise. Supernatural causes cannot be falsified, they do not follow natural laws. God can’t be limited to following the lakes of nature. Science by design must be agnostic, not atheistic but agnostic. Questions outside the realm of science, in addition to the existence of God, include values, aesthetics and moral judgements.
So, yes the theory of evolution doesn’t establish any values, morals, etc. I take mine from Christianity.
If, for instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering.
- Charles Darwin, Descent of Man, and Selection in Regard to Sex
Turning now to the social and moral faculties. In order that primeval men, or the ape-like progenitors of man, should become social, they must have acquired the same instinctive feelings, which impel other animals to live in a body; and they no doubt exhibited the same general disposition. They would have felt uneasy when separated from their comrades, for whom they would have felt some degree of love; they would have warned each other of danger, and have given mutual aid in attack or defence. All this implies some degree of sympathy, fidelity, and courage. Such social qualities, the paramount importance of which to the lower animals is disputed by no one, were no doubt acquired by the progenitors of man in a similar manner, namely, through natural selection, aided by inherited habit.
- Charles Darwin, Descent of Man, and Selection in Regard to Sex
If we were built by a process which did not have us in mind but is merely tuned for survival, then, like it or not, there must be a Darwinian explanation for our thoughts and behavior. Put another way, one cannot claim that Darwinism made our brains but has no bearing on the brain's contents.
See also Evolutionary Ethics
Evidently I don’t agree or I am not convinced by Spencer or EO Wilson.
Darwin quotes?
a. Charles Darwin
The biologization of ethics started with the publication of The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin (1809-1882) in 1871. In this follow-up to On the Origin of Species, Darwin applied his ideas about evolutionary development to human beings. He argued that humans must have descended from a less highly organized form--in fact, from a "hairy, tailed quadruped ... inhabitant of the Old World" (Darwin, 1930: 231). The main difficulty Darwin saw with this explanation is the high standard of moral qualities apparent in humans. Faced with this puzzle, Darwin devoted a large chapter of the book to evolutionary explanations of the moral sense, which he argued must have evolved in two main steps.
First, the root for human morality lies in the social instincts (ibid. 232). Building on this claim by Darwin, today's biologists would explain this as follows. Sociability is a trait whose phylogenetic origins can be traced back to the time when birds "invented" brooding, hatching, and caring for young offspring. To render beings able to fulfill parental responsibilities required social mechanisms unnecessary at earlier stages of evolutionary history. For example, neither amoebae (which reproduce by division) nor frogs (which leave their tadpole-offspring to fend for themselves) need the social instincts present in birds. At the same time as facilitating the raising of offspring, social instincts counterbalanced innate aggression. It became possible to distinguish between "them" and "us" and aim aggression towards individuals that did not belong to one's group. This behavior is clearly adaptive in the sense of ensuring the survival of one's family.
Second, with the development of intellectual faculties, human beings were able to reflect on past actions and their motives and thus approve or disapprove of others as well as themselves. This led to the development of a conscience which became "the supreme judge and monitor" of all actions (ibid. 235). Being influenced by utilitarianism, Darwin believed that the greatest-happiness principle will inevitably come to be regarded as a standard for right and wrong (ibid. 134) by social beings with highly evolved intellectual capacities and a conscience.
Based on these claims, can Darwin answer the two essential questions in ethics? First, how can we distinguish between good and evil? And second, why should we be good? If all his claims were true, they would indeed support answers to the above questions. Darwin's distinction between good and evil is identical with the distinction made by hedonistic utilitarians. Darwin accepts the greatest-happiness principle as a standard of right and wrong. Hence, an action can be judged as good if it improves the greatest happiness of the greatest number, by either increasing pleasure or decreasing pain. And the second question--why we should be good--does not pose itself for Darwin with the same urgency as it did, for instance, for Plato (Thrasymachus famously asked Socrates in the Republic why the strong, who are not in need of aid, should accept the Golden Rule as a directive for action). Darwin would say that humans are biologically inclined to be sympathetic, altruistic, and moral as this proved to be an advantage in the struggle for existence (ibid. 141).
Evolution isn't "practiced" today, it is merely indoctrinated by powers that use the philosophy for their own self-perpetuation. No scientist I have ever studied with or worked with "practices" evolution, because evolution is not purposefully actionable, though it may be the only allowable assumption in a materialist's worldview.
Thankfully not all scientists are materialists and many who actually practice good science do not suffer from such an intellectually bereft worldview.
FReegards!
“Lyell’s uniformitarian nonsense”
Without this nonsense, geology, biology and astronomy make utterly no sense and modern science cannot answer any question of cause. It does not conflict with sudden or punctuated equilibrium. We observe both stasis and catastrophic change when a volcano blows or an asteroid hits. Climate changes are part of the natural order of things and they are a major drive of species change. However, we must assume that the laws of nature, physics and gravity have operated the same throughout. .
“....and then a miracle happens...” is not exactly a science.
Evolution requires a miracle in several places for it to be true.
This same author wrote about and supported man made climate change in a similar format.
The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God,”.
Miller-Urey never got within a billion lightyears of creating life. The experiment produced some left and right handed amino acids (the right handed being incompatible with life), which means it could never have produced even a single protein.
The problem is we don’t have a general theory of climate which would aid in explaining past climates and predicting the future given certain conditions. We do know a fair amount about occurrences that seem to impact on climate particularly regional climates. I just don’t see any one to one relationship between CO2 and temperature at the low levels we have even with mans’ output. I do see a lot of money to be made in climate fear mongering.
Re: “Among the base assumptions of science is methodological naturalism.”
But, does science, to be science, have to be methodological naturalism? If so, does that mean Newton was not really a scientist?
I understand what you are saying in regard to morality and possibly the origin of the universe, but again, does believing in God disqualify a person from being a “scientist”?
If one believes that God created the universe, and created the original species of plant, animal, and insects, and human beings, as well as the various laws that seem to govern its physics - is that person incapable of being “scientific”? Does that make them incapable of doing scientific research?
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