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Evolution, Theory or Science
This comment to my post Two Courts, Two different Decisions brings out the essence of the situation in the debate over Intelligent Design.
PHenry said...
It is amazing the circuit that argument takes in this country. If you watch 'Inherit the wind', about the monkey trials, essentially the message was that it is unfair to deprive students of information about evolution, that they should get all sides and make up their own minds. This was the argument to allow teaching evolution. Now, it seems, those who advocate teaching evolution insist that no other theories be taught. Students no longer need all sides, since the ONE RIGHT opinion is the only one being taught...
Evolution is a theory. It is NOT proven, there has never been ONE piece of evidence found that proves one species changing their chromosome count and becoming another. Not one. So Evolution is no more certain than ID.
Remember, science once considered it unquestionable that the world was flat and the sun revolved around the flat earth.....
There are a host of problems with Darwinian Theory. The increasing difficulty Darwinians have in resolving them place evolution squarely in the theory category. Briefly some of those are:
- The Cambrian Explosion
- The Law of Thermodynamics
- A long list of fraudulent evidence
- Circular reasoning of Homology
In the science and academic community evolution is regarded as fact. This is the reason for the problem in bringing in competing theories to the classroom. Having elevated a theory to fact makes the theory into an article of faith, a dogma, precisely the claim against Intelligent Design. Science can be guide to understanding, but only if it is a search for the truth. When it gets lazy and dogmatic it is only a blind guide.
Science need not adhere to a particular sect to accept the concept of a higher being. To dismiss the possibility outright is to perform research with a bias of presupposition rather than an open mind. Presupposition Has brought us the flat earth, earth centric universe and leaching. Adhering to one theory our origin without competition will set back understanding of our world just as the previous examples did.
In future posts I'll elaborate on these problems. go to Part II
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posted by Xyba | 12:35 PM
10 Comments:
|Understand, I am not saying that there is no evolution, within species. Clearly, survival of the fittest and natural selection will over time alter the characteristics within a species. If all the albino bunnies get eaten by eagles, not many albino bunnies will reproduce.
It is on that basis that the theory of evolution has become 'settled' in the scientific community. However, there is no explanation of how this process can jump the species barrier, as I said, change the choromosome count, and the DNA, and a fish become a bunny, or whatever. If a fish's fins evolved in to legs, it would still be a fish with legs, right?
Remember, we are not talking about one individual getting zapped by cosmic rays and producing an egg with altered DNA, we are talking about TWO or more individuals having IDENTICALLY altered DNA and chromosome counts, and finding each other, and reproducing, and their offspring finding mates, and so on, etc. (reminds me of the old question, who did Adam and Eve's children marry?)
Statistically possible? Maybe, in one or two instances over an eternity, (10,000 monkeys banging on keyboards, and all that) but ending up with the diversity of species on earth? Including all the extinct species?
And that is more plausable than God doing it?
It seems a bit odd that a Hollywood movie would be cited as if it were a historical document. The actual Scopes trial was quite different from the movie.
I suppose someone who thinks "science once considered it unquestionable that the world was flat and the sun revolved around the flat earth..... " can't be bothered to differentiate fact from fiction. Geocentrism was the position defended by the Catholic church at the dawn of what we now call science, though I doubt that even the church fathers of the time would have insisted on a flat earth.
I'm under the impression that for evolutionary theory to work, it requires that "soup becomes cells."
Is that true? Anybody?
re:
"rabbi-philosopher said...
I'm under the impression that for evolutionary theory to work, it requires that "soup becomes cells."
Is that true? Anybody?"
The short answer is; NO.
A longer answer would require a more detailed question, with some evidence that the questioner is not a mere comedian.
Kevin,
First, ascribing an argument's origin to a competing source,
"The problems with Evolution listed in this article can be taken from any run-of-the-mill pamphlet passed out at Born-again churches."
does not discredit the complaint.
My next piece will be the Cambrian explosion, I'm purposefully avoiding ID sources so you will not be offended.
Fast Richard,
The earth Centric and flat earth views were indeed perpetuated by a church dominated science, or as I sat in this article, dogmatism, which can be secular as well as sectarian.
How easily you avoid answering the challenges to the theory of evolution I posed, Kavin. My challenges need not be argued with scientific evidence, nor intellectual argument, because, well, I sound like a religious tract? You, I'm afraid, sound like you have made up your mind. It is settled science, proof or not. (You probably consider man made global warming to be settled science as well?) That is my point about flat earth, or whatever. Truly serious scientists know that until something is proven, using the scientific process, it is theory. And the largest disservice to science is to close the book before the proof is iron clad, because that blinds you to the path to find the truth. And just to ease your apparently god phobic mindset, the truth I refer to is scientific truth, not religious truth. As to the 'who created god' argument, well that goes both ways. Where did the energies that created the big bang, and the materials therein, come from ? What created the rules of nature, the laws of physics? Where did it all come from? OK, you don't think god, but it started somewhere, and your evolution religion does not answer it any better than any religious tract...
Now, Fast Richard, the point I was making by referencing the movie Inherit the Wind was about the supression of ideas. The accuracy of the rest of the movie is irrelevant, because the argument was accurate. I fully support the teaching of evolution in school. I completely agree with the idea that when it comes to competing theories, why should one theory be taught and another shunned. Be it evolution, or ID, or any other possiblity. And I think that is the crux of this argument. There are those who just cannot accept the possiblity of any greater power than man. Ask yourself. If the limited proof of your theory is so compelling, why do you so fear the very suggestion of another possibility? Why must the heretics from your dogma be silenced? Is the very idea that some may believe in God that harmful?
Just try to remember that it is entirely plausable to believe in the scientific process, and to accept that there is something greater than you. Many many scientists, fully rational and analytical, believe in God in one form or another.
Now, anyone want to tackle the changing chromosomes and DNA argument? Or is sneering at the ignorant born agains as deep as it goes?
PS, Kavin, your link to your blog offering your proof of evolution doesn't work. I will be happy to respond to the body of evidence you offer if you post a good link.
I tracked down Kavins blog, it is here:
http://kavinsworld.blogspot.com/
Kavin has clearly read a couple books, and has summarily rejected any possiblity there is a God, based upon the argument he outlines here. ('Then where did God come from?') To him that settles the question. He seems somewhat offended that there are those in the world who do believe in a God, and he considers them ignorant and unlearned. He feels that if they would only read a book or two about evolution, they, too, would reject God and become scientifically mature like him.
Kavin, open your mind to the possibility that there are intellegent, learned, and rational people in the world who do not come to the same conclusions as you. Your rationality for discounting God is simplistic, and far less informed and resoned than the arguments made here against the certainty of evolution. Remember, my arguments at no point say evolution can not be true. I simply submit that it is not proven. I do not discount it outright just because of missing pieces of the puzzle, the way you reject God and ID. Just because you don't understand aspects of a theory does not prove it to be false.
If you aspire to be an intellectual and to begin to understand the mysteries of the world, try to understand that the wise man never forgets that there are still things which he does not know or understand. And all that he knows may someday prove mistaken.
I completely agree with the idea that when it comes to competing theories, why should one theory be taught and another shunned.
I don't. Only scientific theories should be taught in science classes. That seems pretty simple to me.
JPE claifies something we haven't spent much time on. The idea that science and the concept of God are entirely incompatable.That seems to be the true rational behind most of the god phobia in the media and government today. OK, God's existance is not something that can be proven by the scientific process. But it can't be disproven either. I'm not talking about teaching the biblical concepts or Koran, etc. But the idea that there is a larger intelligence is not anti scientific. It is a disservice to science to pretend that you must either believe in science or in God. They can, and do, go together for many people. How sad that we have come to be so 'enlightened' that we are ready to discount anything greater than ourselves...
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