Evolution vs. Creation being taught in schools

[ProHypster]

The "arguments" that some of you are proposing, just baffle me. How the hell could anyone think that this logic makes any sense at all? If your theory is that people aren't getting any smarter, then you yourself are exhibit A.

 

This thread has become like a group of people trying to restrain a few babbling idiots who escaped from their straitjackets.

 

I'M OUT

 

I think I can understand your (the people against me in this debate) thinking now, let me try to understand it.

 

Ok, so first of, Doom Shepherd said that God must be crazy if he messed with us with the mutations.

 

Doom Shepherds thinking: Mutations made by God = God is crazy

 

My thinking: By the most simplest and common logic even children have Mutations made by God = God is crazy, yet is our logic always right? Don't think of it as a crazy question because of your logic. Could it be that to understand why God made mutations you would need his own logic? Could it be maybe written in the bible that we will never understand God's intentions and that doesn't matter, the question is do we need to understand him or do we need to understand that he exists.

 

Eedobaba's thinking: Computers, Faster scientific research, TV = People getting smarter

 

My thinking: Again that is children's logic, what you need to think about is all the factors why we could be faster and more developed:

 

- 2000 years ago it was one scientist trying to prove something all his life. He had no theoretical background, noone taught him anything in school and the tools weren't given to him by previous inventions.

- Nowadays it's a laboratory of scientists trying to prove something all their life. Communication is faster and we are at the highest social level of human history with even facebook,

 

I could go on... but the real proof here is history,

 

look at the ages and progress in science between 400 AD and 1000 AD in Europe and look at the ages and progress in science between 300 BC to 400 AD in Europe.

 

Seriously if you still don't get it, I can't help you.

 

Danielsangeo thinking: Aristotle would have a tough time figuring out the computer so he must be stupid.

 

Me thinking: This time you think of only one way, have you tried reversing it? A modern scientist would have a tough time figuring out how to make bronze with the tools given to him at that time. Aristotle was smart because everything he did, he did without any schooling whatsoever and he still could beat many graduates today in mathematical and philosophical theories.

 

I cannot stress the fact to think a little deeper before responding.

[ProHypster]

The way I see it, I see some people looking at a television set and wondering how the pictures get onto the screen and suggesting that light can't travel fast enough to replace the image on a screen at a quick enough speed as to simulate moving pictures; that the human eye would be able to see the "stuttering" between the pictures, even at 100FPS, and then claiming that there's an invisible man sitting in every TV painting the pictures for you and then demanding the "invisible man theory" to be taught in science class.

 

Or, tl;dr: Argument from ignorance (aka "No way!") is no replacement for debunking evidence.

 

(Oh, and Bear Grylls is a human.)

 

Replacement? I just want the teacher to teach people that it is a scientific theory not a fact. I don't want any religious replacement ther Religion belongs to Theology.

[ProHypster]

Danielsangeo: I was fully aware of the irony involved in putting the words "believe" and "evolution" together in the same sentence. In retrospect, I derped on that one. It's actually kind of arrogant to think that anyone's beliefs will accurately represent the reality. Its just too big.

 

Good to see another philosopher here!

 

About the island and 200 humans, couldn't you just have said that flies adjust to their enemy, the human spray can (I don't know the english term) all the time.

 

Isn't that "proof" of the basics of evolution?

[Axeldeath]

The theory is at it's base simply thus: That each existing species/creature has it's origins as a random electrochemical mixture that spontaneously became living.

 

You.. Are so full of it BTG, how can you say you've studied the theory of evolution and then say that it is abiogenisis? What's wrong with you?

[danielsangeo]

Danielsangeo thinking: Aristotle would have a tough time figuring out the computer so he must be stupid.

 

Not quite.

 

danielsangeo thinking: Aristotle and modern man have DIFFERENT levels of smartness.

 

Aristotle, for instance, believed in the five elements. This has been, FACTUALLY, proven as wrong. Aristotle wasn't stupid; he was going by the evidence of the time, but he wasn't "smart" as we would say smart. Intelligence is derived from many different factors and we're not getting stupider as time progresses; in fact, we are getting smarter. It's just that, on the timescale required for evolution of the human species, Aristotle and us are almost identical.

 

Me thinking: This time you think of only one way, have you tried reversing it? A modern scientist would have a tough time figuring out how to make bronze with the tools given to him at that time. Aristotle was smart because everything he did, he did without any schooling whatsoever and he still could beat many graduates today in mathematical and philosophical theories.

 

I cannot stress the fact to think a little deeper before responding.

 

Try to read what one types instead of what you think one types and assuming. You got my post wrong so you might have gotten others' posts wrong, too.

 

Like I said, you can't compare the two on the basis of technology. Aristotle couldn't use a computer without training and a modern scientist couldn't make bronze out of Bronze Age tools without training. Aristotle is no more stupid than today's scientists and today's scientists are no more stupid than Aristotle. However, *MORE* people on the planet are now smarter than their counterparts from Aristotle's age. More people have understanding of the fundamentals of the Earth now than they did back then, for example. We don't generally believe that sick people have demons in them that must be cast out by a ritualized ceremony of chanting and throwing water at people when all they really have is a mental disorder.

[ProHypster]

We don't generally believe that sick people have demons in them that must be cast out by a ritualized ceremony of chanting and throwing water at people when all they really have is a mental disorder.

 

We don't generally believe at all, we read the scientific newspaper and assume it's a fact ...

 

But this has been observerd since the roman times when one leader would get the full support of the crowd, then the next minute another leader speaks to them and gets their full support for him.

 

It was called "The stupidity of crowds"

[danielsangeo]

We don't generally believe that sick people have demons in them that must be cast out by a ritualized ceremony of chanting and throwing water at people when all they really have is a mental disorder.

 

We don't generally believe at all, we read the scientific newspaper and assume it's a fact ...

 

Because these people have done the work and the outcomes are available for anyone to read. AND test themselves. If I tell you that if you hold a pen above your floor and let go, that it'll drop to the floor, will you test it before assuming it's fact? Probably not because you've seen things fall many times in the past. If I tell you that if you hold a pen above your floor and let go, that it'll swoop, do loop-de-loops, hover four feet off the ground, before jumping onto your table dancing to "Hello Mah Baby", then you won't believe me. In fact, you'll probably laugh at me.

 

And you can test it for yourself by letting go of a pen above your floor.

 

But this has been observerd since the roman times when one leader would get the full support of the crowd, then the next minute another leader speaks to them and gets their full support for him.

 

It was called "The stupidity of crowds"

 

Yet this is better today than it was back then. People don't automatically assume that the speaker is correct or incorrect (well, outside some groups that I know of in the United States, at least, but I'll leave that to another discussion) simply because the speaker is speaking. In science, you can certainly investigate AND falsify people's work. In fact, the scientists WANT you to do that. They WANT you to try to falsify their work. They WANT you to check to see if it's right. They WANT you to do things for yourself and figure out the right answer. They WANT you to bring to the table hard evidence that destroys their life's work. I know that this sounds completely counterintuitive but that's how science actually gets stronger.

 

Like I said before, my science teacher said that Beaker A had acid in it. Those that said that Beaker A had acid in it (agreeing with the teacher) were marked WRONG. Why? Because they didn't test the liquid in Beaker A. Had they done so, they would've seen that the liquid was an alkaline, not an acid. Assuming that the teacher was right is actually the WRONG COURSE OF ACTION and was marked as such on your grade.

[ProHypster]

This time I agree with your whole post, rep for that

[ProHypster]

Now adding to the debate against evolution:

 

Let's talk about simple mutations, a concept of evolution for now.

 

As I understand it current scientists say that, for evolution to work there needs to be an increase of data from mutations?

My controversial question is:

 

Can a mutation actually add new data?

As far as I know mutation causes a loss of information, transfers information but never increases information.

 

Because this is a horrible response, it mostly says that sure there is no benefitial mutations but there is always hope! And I haven't found any better:

 

1.2.1 Are all mutations harmful?

 

While it is true that most mutations are either harmful, as suggested by the creationists, or neutral, the creationists gloss over a crucial fact: beneficial mutations do occur, though they are very rare. Can a beneficial mutation that occurs once in million individuals ever really contribute to evolution? Yes it can, since a rare beneficial mutation can confer a survival or reproductive advantage to the individuals that carry it, thereby leading -- over several generations -- to the spread of this mutation throughout a population. Beneficial mutations occurring in several different individuals in several different genes can simultaneously spread through a population, and can be followed by successive rounds of additional mutation and selection.

 

Does the fact that we know many human detrimental mutations but essentially no clear beneficial ones mean that there are have been no beneficial mutations in human history? Not at all, since there is a clear bias in what medical scientists have studied. The human mutations we know most about are detrimental because medical scientists preferentially study illnesses that cause significant morbidity and mortality. Consider the theoretical possibility that a beneficial mutation has occurred in a particular human gene; even if this mutation were identified by a comparison of the mutated gene in a child versus the unmutated version of the same gene in both parents, there is no way that this mutation could ever be recognized as beneficial. If the mutation increased intelligence, strength, longevity or specific disease resistance, this would never be apparent without long-term breeding experiments that could obviously never be done on humans. Therefore, since such beneficial mutations in humans could never be recognized in humans, our ignorance of examples cannot be taken as evidence that they don't exist. However, the experiments necessary to demonstrate a beneficial mutation can be done with laboratory organisms that multiply rapidly, and indeed such experiments have shown that rare beneficial mutations can occur. For instance, from a single bacterium one can grow a population in the presence of an antibiotic, and demonstrate that organisms surviving this culture have mutations in genes that confer antibiotic resistance. In this case (in contrast to the situation with the peppered moth populations described above) origin of the population from a single bacterium allows comparisons of the mutated genes with the corresponding genes from the original bacterium, verifying that the variant sequences were not present before the culture with antibiotics and therefore arose as de novo beneficial mutations.

[danielsangeo]

Now adding to the debate against evolution:

 

Let's talk about simple mutations, a concept of evolution for now.

 

As I understand it current scientists say that, for evolution to work there needs to be an increase of data from mutations?

 

May I ask what you mean by "increase of data"?

 

My controversial question is:

 

Can a mutation actually add new data?

As far as I know mutation causes a loss of information, transfers information but never increases information.

 

There's something called "duplication". Let's say the following (very oversimplified, but I think it works):

 

You have genetic information for the word "cat". Let's just say that it's those three letters: C-A-T (again, vastly oversimplified, but let's go with it). The code is duplicated (mutation) during mitosis. So, now you have "catcat". Is this an increase in information? It doesn't kill the organism so this "catcat" continues through the generations. Eventually, one of the letters mutates into another letter. Now it's "catcap". Again, doesn't kill the organism and continues through the generations until mutation happens again and you have "catcip". Repeat. Now you have "catnip". Suddenly, from 'cat', you have 'catnip'. Something completely different from what it was. Is this "increased information"?

 

Let's go one step further. From the ancestral organism with "catcap", you have a mutation. "Catnap". From the ancestral organism for "catcip", you get "catsip" than "catsup". From cat, you get "catnip", "catsup" and "catnap". Three organisms from one source.

 

What do you mean by "increased information"?

[ProHypster]

That's a perfectly good explanation, another rep. Let me test it though.

 

A mechanism that is likely to be particularly common for adding information is gene duplication, in which a long stretch of DNA is copied, followed by point mutations that change one or both of the copies. Genetic sequencing has revealed several instances in which this is likely the origin of some proteins. For example:

 

Two enzymes in the histidine biosynthesis pathway that are barrel-shaped, structural and sequence evidence suggests, were formed via gene duplication and fusion of two half-barrel ancestors (Lang et al. 2000).

RNASE1, a gene for a pancreatic enzyme, was duplicated, and in langur monkeys one of the copies mutated into RNASE1B, which works better in the more acidic small intestine of the langur. (Zhang et al. 2002)

Yeast was put in a medium with very little sugar. After 450 generations, hexose transport genes had duplicated several times, and some of the duplicated versions had mutated further. (Brown et al. 1998)

 

The biological literature is full of additional examples. A PubMed search (at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi) on "gene duplication" gives more than 3000 references.

[danielsangeo]

Well, what I'd like is an answer to what "increased information" is.

[ProHypster]

Well, what I'd like is an answer to what "increased information" is.

Beneficial mutated genes are the added infromation.

[danielsangeo]

Thanks.

 

Check it out:

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html

[ProHypster]

Very interesting.

 

One thing I found though is that none of the evidence makes a species change so much it can't multiply with it's ancestor.

 

Couldn't it be possible that is just the beauty of the defence of the species, they always adapt very small changes to the environment like us, but they will never ultimately change into another species.

 

Untill I see evidence of that I cannot believe in evolution. Yes, I said, believe.

[BTGBullseye]

Just thinking here... If it's NOT taught as fact in school, but only as a Theory, how does that hurt anyone?

 

Religion is already taught as a belief system, not as fact. (as BOTH should be)

 

If Evolution is true, then it will prove itself regardless of how it's taught in school... Right? Or do you believe it has to be taught as fact for it to be fact?

[Koockaburra101]

Again you keep persisting in misunderstanding what a scientific "theory" means

[BTGBullseye]

Again you keep persisting in misunderstanding what a scientific "theory" means

Again, you keep misunderstanding how that makes no difference when you have yet to show me any conjectureless evidence.

[ProHypster]

Ladies, Ladies, stop post-slapping each other.

[danielsangeo]

Very interesting.

 

One thing I found though is that none of the evidence makes a species change so much it can't multiply with it's ancestor.

 

Couldn't it be possible that is just the beauty of the defence of the species, they always adapt very small changes to the environment like us, but they will never ultimately change into another species.

 

Untill I see evidence of that I cannot believe in evolution. Yes, I said, believe.

 

We have been providing evidence for evolution up and down this thread. What exactly do you want? Specifics. Don't just say "conjectureless evidence". Provide an example of what you mean by this.

 

I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT.

 

Again you keep persisting in misunderstanding what a scientific "theory" means

Again, you keep misunderstanding how that makes no difference when you have yet to show me any conjectureless evidence.

 

Wait, what? "Conjectureless"? Do you know what you're talking about?