Is Evolution True?

That’s a pretty tall claim. Have you got something against conventional science? In the physical sciences, an open system is a system where matter or energy can flow into and/or out of, while in a closed system no energy or matter may enter or leave.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics is only aplicable in a closed system. This is widely accepted by physicists everywhere, and you simply disagreeing without providing an argument isn’t going to change anything.

1-Prove that it IC hinges on argumentum ad ignorantiam? I would veiw that to be self evident. Prove that IC has no testable hypothesis or evidence to support it? Well, I can’t prove a negative…perhaps there is some evidence in it’s suport tucked away under a rock in anarctica somewhere, but proponents of the idea certainly haven’t produced any.
2-Are you denying that evolution happens?

Other explainations such as?
You are certain of that how exactly? A divine revalation perhaps?
Also, you are targetting a strawman when you imply evolution to be random. Nothing is random.

What about the theory of evolution is not reasonable? You certainly haven’t raised any valid objections, neither has any other of the ID camp in this thread.

What acusations? you have freely admitted to believing in a creationist style deity many times. Also, I have never met anyone not infected with religion take issue with evolution theory.
Why don’t you point me at ONE credible secular scientist that ‘doesn’t believe in evolution’ …I won’t be holding my breath here…

Dear Dr Sss

So which of these descriptions is more accurate for a universe that is increasing quanitatively but decreasing qualitatively?

Bullshit. There are so many different versions of the second law that it’s hard to know where to begin.

If you’d let me chop up the organs you use to speak I could provide an adequate example, as could anyone.

Given that all science is only ever on the basis of the best available knowledge I think the criticism is absurdly applied in this case. The testable hypothesis is that we’ll never find a mechanism to explain how the vastly complex lifeform that is a human came to be. If we find such a mechanism the claim is falsified.

I don’t believe that life originated in some chaotic mess. Species adapt, sure. Species die out, sure.

I’m certain that the notion is incorrect because nothing that I’ve ever experienced has suggested it even might be true.

Other explanations such as a vastly superior life form (alien or whatever) that has always existed or came to be in a place where the conditions for the development of life were very different to those in our universe (what we know of it) coming to earth and planting us here, say, 100,000 years ago. You know the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics?

It seems absurd given the nature of the universe. And it relies on things not in evidence, makes all sorts of predictions and claims that have never been verified and is at best an incomplete explanation.

Aye, but I didn’t believe in the theory of evolution for a long time before I started believing in a God.

Darwin raised serious questions about it, though his religious beliefs are unclear…

Tomoko Ohta raised serious questions about the validity of the theory of natural selection which is of course a central part of the theory.

And anyone who believe in the Everett interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Actually some of them still believe in a God, but there are secular ones as well.

Everett = many world interpretation. I think that’s absurd : it violates strongly the energy conservation.

Marc

i’m gettin tired of hearing this… Darwin had doubts because he had no clue about how it happened
he never heard of DNA or genetic recombination

Good old willem, you can trust him to understate any case which contradicts his beliefs. As though Darwin’s only concern was mechanism by which traits could be inherited…

that probably was his biggest concern anyway, although i’m not darwin so i won’t say anything in his place…

His biggest concern, yes. And I’ll be the first to admit that natural selection looks a much better bet now than it did in Darwin’s time.

Just thought I’d throw this in…

abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/ … m#contacts

Evolution is being challenged by “Intelligent Design”. But what is it and is it science?

W.C.

Because I’ve been gone I don’t really want to jump into the discussion without first reading everything, but I wanted to point out some things, regardless of how accurate you think some of the things I say.
First, don’t refer to me as “he” I’ve already told y’all I’m a female, also, I am from the South, but the reason I write the way I do is simply because it’s easier for me seeing as how I’m not the world’s greatest typer. Now as to what you think created the world is your own problem. I just wish y’all weren’t so pigheaded in the way y’all make us who see the problems with your theory listen to all of that blather day in and day out at school. All I really wish for is a relatively minor concession on both parts; the teachers teach real science without evolution dictating everything and remember that it is only a theory and not fact because there is no evidence.
You know what really annoys me? How hypocritical y’all are. Y’all say Christianity is bogus and you sneer at our morals and what the Bible tells us to do, but whenever you see a Christian doing something you deem to be at odds with our faith, you jump on 'em and try to use our own Bible against us and say that we should always abide by it. Well, you know what, that’s the great thing about our faith, the Lord knows we’re human and not perfect, all he asks for is that we try our best. If we slip up occasionaly, he’ll forgive us.
Also, as others have pointed out during this very unenlightening arguement, is how y’all are willing to believe without proof. When we ask for proof y’all turn around and say that you can’t prove it to be wrong. Did you know that it is impossible to proove something doesn’t exist?
And if you choose to contest anything I’ve said today try to do it less arrogantly then y’alls previous posts have been, that gets rather annoying, too. I apologize if my post is jumbled and confusing, just don’t attack me for it, that’s a pointless exercise and a waste of my time. Be seeing y’all.

i’m quite sure i did no such thing !

The following is my own peice of information to add to this debate.

It isn’t exactly proof of the theory of evolution, just evidence of natural selection acting on random variation as an algorithm for seeking solutions. Still, once it is shown that natural selection does pretty much what Darwin thought it would do, evolution doesn’t seem that implausible does it?

Anyway, my evidence is as follows: I wanted to solve a specific engineering problem - how to get the ideal trajectory that a rocket had to take to reach orbit. The trajectory is based on a complicated function designed to minimize the drag and gravity losses of the path. If it’s too shallow, the drag losses would make the path very inefficient. If it’s too tall, gravity losses would make it difficult to attain orbit. Rockets, being very fuel inefficient vehicles, don’t have much of a fudge factor for fuel inefficient paths - so if you want to get the most out of your rocket, finding the best path is important.

So what does this have to do with natural selection? Natural selection, is, in effect, how the program that solved my problem works. I parameterized the path angle at each point in time (a steering function). This is the “genome”. Then I formed a population of trial genomes, all initialized to zero degrees at all times (which is a straight vertical trajectory). Obviously it wouldn’t reach orbit. Then I set up a loop where each genome would be tested by running a crude ascent simulation for the rocket (drag, gravity, ect). Afterwards, the performance of the rocket was ranked according to how close to a circular orbit tangential velocity it got, as well as which path got to a higher orbit. There were some things that went into it.

What was important was that I never specified anything about the solution other than what I wanted it to do (get to the highest possible circular orbit using a given rocket). I didn’t have to know how it would do it.

Anyway, then I would select the best genome out of the population, repopulate the population space with copies of that genome. I would then apply random mutations to the genome parameter - adding or subtracting a random value from a random position. Then I would re-iterate the simulation.

Each generation had a best performing genome. Even though the genomes were mutated randomly, due to the fact that the population was large (about 100), the fitness scores of that genome almost exponentially approached a maximum value, and the parameterized flight path approached a solution that solved the problem.

So, it worked. Natural selection can produce a solution to a design problem. What do you think?

I haven’t read the entire topic, just most of it, and I want to say this (though I’m sure it’s been said before):

 Evolutionary theory has nothing to do with religion.  If you're going to try to refute a scientific theory based on empirical evidence, refute it with empirical evidence.

 If religious persons were open to revising their "knowledge base" to account for new evidence, then religion would be the same thing as science.  However, [i]it's not[/i], and it's not even valid logic to assume that two such radically different systems of value and requirements of justification have to be intelligible to each other.

 The only apparently plausible argument for intelligent design is that of irreducible complexity.  The argument follows basically as such:

 There are biological systems that are composed of a number or interacting parts, none of which would be concievably functional or useful to the organism in an undeveloped state or independantly of the entire system.

 This assumes, though, that an eye (one of the most common examples of irreducible complexity that proponents of intelligent design use) developed with the purpose or goal of reaching its "end state" (a complex, seeing eye), and that the sequential evolution of it followed a narrow functional path leading towards its current function.  It is plausible (although not empirically demonstrable) that complex, [i]seemingly[/i] irreducible biological structures developed in a way that would not make them easily reverse-engineerable.  Just because it's not clearly apparent how these structures could have evolved (with our current knowledge) doesn't mean that the bible is correct (or that one has to call an "intelligent" creator into the picture to explain things.)  It merely means that the theory of evolution may take some revision to adequately explain all that it claims to account for.

 Nope, just to support an alternative hypothesis with more evidence and more concrete (consistant empirically grounded) evidence.

Pmsl… is this chick serious, or is it someone arguing for natural selection by pretending to be one of its generic opponents??

Anyways I do do this. I sneer at christians morals, and what the bible says Silly christains…

Hasn’t the eye been well documented, you can track the form of the brain (and thus the size of the visual cortex if relatives exist) or look at some well preserved specimen, or some living fossils.

Light sensitive patches gives you a distinct advantage, combine different colour sensitivities and you get to actually seeing stuff etc…

Why would it be a bad idea to teach ID in public schools?
You have no evidence of GOD.
You have no evidence of Jesus.

I don’t believe in evolution.
I believe in the teachings of Jesus.
See the difference?

Do you believe God created DNA?
Why would God create something so useless.

You don’t understand evolution?
Do you understand why parallels meet at infinity?
Do you understand Chinese?
Do you know if electric particles create electric fields or wise versa?
Do you believe that all Chinese will turn off the light and meet at infinity?

If you don’t believe in evolution stop doing it!

Oh, you did already!

The same reason it would be a bad idea to teach that the ultimate constituents of the universe, are bologna, and ham… with a little parmesian cheese sprinkled on top.

Evolution is true, but the Darwinistic selection principle is false!

Consciousness is the driver of evolution. Without it, we would not exist. Essentially, we “created” evolution. Evolution is the sum result of random processes with random goals, and eventually, due to an infinite amount of potential and zero amount of time, the random goal of consciousness was reached. This implies, that our universe only formed because of consciousness, and that we are on our planet, because this is the one planet after billions that formed consciousness.

However, this is not the case. Why does consciousness inherently need resource consumption? Why does life require a constant form to maintain consciousness? Solar system does not have complexity, grain of sand does nos not have complexity. Only life has sufficient complexity to form consciousness, and that is the only reason in grows, because in all of the worlds where complexity did not grow, there was no consciousness. Therefore consciousness is the cause of complexity, and complexity is the cause of consciousness. To maintain this complexity, our bodies require to transform matter into parts of their bodies, resource consumption. Resource consumption appears to be needed or else it results in static entities, rocks, or uncomplex moving entities, bodies of water. But perhaps it is possible to impregnate water with consciousness someday, since our bodies are after all mostly water.

My prior assertion, that Earth was the origin planet of consciousness, is more or less true. But Earth is not the origin planet of life itself, it is possible that unconscious intelligent lifeforms visited our planet, terraformed it, and impregnated it with life, many years ago. This seems to violate Occams Razor, however, the concept that evolution has an inherent perogative of creating structures (creatures) of increasing complexity and resource consumption seems to avoid Occams Razor as well.

Everlooshun is bad m’kay. Coz God did it y’all.
Not much of an argument is it?

If ‘unique abilities’ is so special, how did god do it. And who did god?

He predicted the need for genetics though, which speaks highly of his understanding of the process.