Posted on 01/28/2005 4:28:41 PM PST by metacognative
Adequate is good enougth. Do you feel inadequate?
Actually, there is such a requirement in the practice of science. Particularly when there is no sound argument against the currently accepted theory.
It sounds like you are overstating your case somewhat there, JS. One can question a theory until the cows come home without an alternative theory, under certain conditions, and still be practicing science.
Some of these conditions might include:
One has new experiemental evidence which appears to contradict the theory
The theory being questioned is new, and one is questioning the mathematics, the predictions, or the design of the experiments which support the theory
"Less-filling / tastes great" debates such as nature vs. nurture, or low-carb diet (Atkins) vs. low fat (Ormish)
And of course one is always free to look for logical flaws or faulty predictions, even if one has no replacement.
Despite some posters' intellectual vanity, it really is acceptable to say "I don't know" or "I haven't studied that yet" or "Gee, how does that model work in regard to XXX?"
Full Disclosure: It may be true that none of these examples apply to the typical posting by cre-o's here. But there is stil such a thing as refining a model; or such a thing as poking holes in a model, in order to alert people it's time to work on a better one--even if you haven't worked out the improvements yourself.
Good joke for the cre-o's on this thread:
A Sunday School teacher is introducing his young charges to
the concept of repentance and forgiveness. After giving
several examples from the Bible, the teacher concludes,
"OK, class. Can anyone tell me what we have to do first to be forgiven?"
A little boy in the back pipes up. "SIN!"
This is just begging for someone to post a photo of a bottle of Viagra or Levitra :-)
Full Disclosure: It's not the motion of the ocean, it's the size of your Peninsula. And some folks have *lots* of coastline!
It's not the wand, but the skill of the magician.
Sorry. All of my return volley of puns are too convoluted or just rather crude. I'll try and do better next time!
Experimental evidence contradicting a 145 year old theory will have to be pretty powerful. A number of hypothethetical examples are posted on most of these threads, but no such powerful contradiction exists for evolution. Any theory as vast in its implications as evolution will spawn smaller explanatory theories and hypotheses. These are fair game, and rather frequently revised.
Evolution is neither new nor faddish.
In fact, the word "theory" is generally applied only to well established ideas, not easily overturned.
mm-hmm, what kind of powerful experiments did darwin do to overturn the very old theory of his day??
seems like evolution was impossible to do experiments on..
was going to submit an essay on this article but had no idea how long it was already
Dude, it's Darwin Central. We don't need no stinkin' Evoeus.
2) Evolution is impossible since it contradicts the 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy). I am sure we have all heard both sides. Can we agree to call these false arguments?
Hi WT! Though you didn't direct these questions to me, I am very interested in exploring them.
May I ask a favor? Would you kindly point me to the discussion of (2) that you think is wrongly argued? I'm pretty confident that thermodynamics does not contradict evolution at all; but want to see what has been said on this point before I reply.
Thanks guy!
Too bad 2beathomemom's posts were deleted but the basic argument starts like this:
"Evolution is impossible IAW the theory of entropy (2nd law of thermodynamics) because the theory requires a closed system (false) disorder to increase (false) and evolution requires that disorder decrease."
The argument is nonsensical since they typically use wrong nomeclature and misapply the principles of the law.
Here is a rather long explanation. Take a look and if it is too detailed, let me know and I will "shorten" it some.
You can google entropy creationism or google entropy evolution and get a lot of these sites.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo.html
Yes, as in Newton's gravitation vs. General Relativity.
Please re-read the "Full Disclosure" from my earlier post, concentrating upon the portion in boldface. :-)
Cheers!
He didn't overturn the old theory so much as he described the mechanism of natural selection. Evolutionary theory had been around for a while.
Also most of the evidence for evolutionary biology is observational, not experimental. People don't live long enough for the kinds of experiments that would be fun to do with evolution.
That limit is changing. I don't know if I will live long enough, but evolution is definitely a laboratory science now.
I still want flying primates!
None of this gliding around stuff.
;)
Don't know about flying primates, but I have gliding mammals. I have a cat that goes in and out through the cat door at night. Lately he has been bringing in young flying squirrels. I wake up at 3:00 am to the sounds of the squirrel screaming. Usually the squirrel escapes into the house, so I have to capture it and release it.
It wasn't so bad when it was rats. I didn't mind hearing them scream. But evolution has made flying squirrels cute, so I expect them to replace rats, by human selection.
LOL!
My cat goes after rabbits. Screaming rabbits are very unsettling. They sound like human children.
Come to think of it, last year it was bats. So I've had both flying and gliding mammals. Can primates be far behind?
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