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To: Long Cut
I fail to see where "faith" comes in to play in science. The scientist either has evidence and repeatable results or he does not. If he does not, the method demands that the theory or conclusion be rejected, or altered.

There are no "repeatable results" when it comes to evolution, any more than there are with archaeology. The study of life's origins, whether you look at it from a creation or naturalistic POV, is a historical science, not something that can be repeated in the lab. There's a big difference in the methodology between the two: Physical science lends itself to experimentation, where historical science depends on an interpretation of an ever-increasing body of evidence that cannot be reproduced in the lab. Disagree? Then I propose that you create life and let it evolve into an entire world of different species . . . in the lab.

Of course, then all you'll be doing is proving that it takes an intellegence to create life, but that's the Catch-22. ;^)

If the "other side" were mentioned, honesty would require the disclaimer that no verifiable evidence supported it.

Certainly there is. There's an entire body of data that supports the theory that life does not spontaneously appear from inorganic material, which is what purely naturalistic evolution requires. We've discovered that the so-called "simple" cell isn't, and that it requires millions of very carefully balanced parts and interactions to function, which could not have arised by common chance. Irreducible complexity. We have a derth of transitional forms in the fossil records, when according to evolution we should have almost nothing but transitional forms--that is, we see stable species going along virtually unchanged for millions of years, not slow changes over time.

And we have an increasing number of biologists acknowledging those facts. Evolutionists are being disingenous when they paint the struggle as being between naturalistic evolution and Biblical young-earth creationism. There is a vast amount of middle ground, from those who posit a creative intellegence who was only responsible for abiogenesis to those who see a need for a mechanic other than natural selection to explain the abundance of different lifeforms and the missing transitions in the fossil record, all of which are represented in the growing ID movement.

The question is, do we tell our children about this ongoing debate honestly, or do we try to lock them into one viewpoint or another by allowing only one to be taught in schools and elimiating the conflicting data? I vote for honesty.

60 posted on 10/18/2003 11:47:00 AM PDT by Buggman (Jesus Saves--the rest of you take full damage.)
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To: Buggman
Physical science lends itself to experimentation, where historical science depends on an interpretation of an ever-increasing body of evidence that cannot be reproduced in the lab.

Buggman! Long time no see!

You're quite correct about the distinction between experimental and historical sciences. But they're both sciences. The historical sciences (astronomy, geology, anthropology, paleontology, climatology, archaeology, cosmology, and of course, evolution) use presently available and verifiable evidence to discover a past which can't be re-created. Evolution makes predictions -- about the kinds of fossils that will be found, etc. Evolution is falsifiable -- if out-of-sequence creatures are discovered the game's over. So it's a science.

The question is, do we tell our children about this ongoing debate honestly, or do we try to lock them into one viewpoint or another by allowing only one to be taught in schools and elimiating the conflicting data? I vote for honesty.

I'm really puzzled by your reference to "the conflicting data." I'm not aware of anything at all that contradicts the theory of evolution. Could you give us something specific?

61 posted on 10/18/2003 12:15:13 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
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To: Buggman
The question is, do we tell our children about this ongoing debate honestly, or do we try to lock them into one viewpoint or another by allowing only one to be taught in schools and elimiating the conflicting data?

I'm not really aware of anyone pressing for specifically "nihilistic evolution".
74 posted on 10/18/2003 1:06:44 PM PDT by Dimensio (Sometimes I doubt your committment to Sparkle Motion!)
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To: Buggman
There's an entire body of data that supports the theory that life does not spontaneously appear from inorganic material, which is what purely naturalistic evolution requires.

Than you can, no doubt, provide a pointer to said body of data.

75 posted on 10/18/2003 1:07:36 PM PDT by donh (1)
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To: Buggman
There are no "repeatable results" when it comes to evolution, any more than there are with archaeology. The study of life's origins, whether you look at it from a creation or naturalistic POV, is a historical science, not something that can be repeated in the lab.

Just as is the case in astronomy.

76 posted on 10/18/2003 1:10:50 PM PDT by donh (1)
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To: Buggman
We have a derth of transitional forms in the fossil records, when according to evolution we should have almost nothing but transitional forms--that is, we see stable species going along virtually unchanged for millions of years, not slow changes over time.

I think I'll break out my own Tree of Life graphic again:

See? It's usually a small population that breaks away from the big, successful population. The big population is already sitting pretty in its environmental niche, so any new beneficial mutation has to compete with all the existing alleles, which are doing their host organisms just fine, thank you. That plus the raw mathematics of population genetics means that a new mutation has practically a zero chance of taking over the gene pool.

But the breakaway population - that's a whole different story! If they get isolated in a different environment, then suddenly all sorts of selection pressures immediately change. Different alleles are now beneficial, and any recent mutations that are present in these individuals all of a sudden have a fighting chance to be really useful. Plus, mathematically it's much easier for a mutation (even a neutral one!) to take over a small population than a big one.

That's why we tend not to see transitional fossils between one species and the next, closely related one. But there are many progressions of species in the fossil record from one family to the next. In the 20th century, as the fields of ecology & population genetics became better understood & integrated with evolutionary biology, it became clear that this is the pattern that we should see, and that the traditional gradualistic tree was way too simplistic.

79 posted on 10/18/2003 1:25:31 PM PDT by jennyp (http://crevo.bestmessageboard.com)
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To: Buggman
Thank you, like many things, the evolution theory is something many desperately WANT to believe in.
99 posted on 10/19/2003 5:43:49 AM PDT by HankReardon
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To: Buggman
There are no "repeatable results" when it comes to evolution

Not true, on a couple of levels.

1) It is a repeated fact that no Cambrian rocks have ever contained a mammal fossil, etc, etc. Every dig has the possibility of finding one, but it's never happened.

2) Another sort of repeated result comes from genetics. For example, the theory predicts that if a transposon is found in the genome of both a cow and a whale, it will also be found in the genome of a hippo. Or if one is found in both chimps and orangutangs, it will also be found in people and gorillas. This sort of observation has been repeated hundreds, if not thousands, of times. The only known explanation is evolution.

169 posted on 10/20/2003 4:10:55 PM PDT by Virginia-American
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