Macrobstar said:
So I got into an argument with my dad today. He says that there is way more evidence for intelligent design than for evolution, and that evolution is "just a theory" and has "minimal evidence"
I tried explaining to him, about fossils and genetics but he wouldn't listen
So escapees, most convincing evidence for evolution?
PS: I also tried "Every noteworthy scientist believes in evolution" he just said, no.
Alright, I'm going to put a smidgen of effort into this post, because it is something that is important to me. I'm a Christian, but I cuss and don't particularly care for political parties so I suppose you can take that for what it is (hint: it's not about either of those things). I also have a degree in biology. It's nothing fancy but its dipped me into the sciences a bit more than some of my peers and it was done so in a very SCIENTIFIC manner so I figure it counts for something.
First off, I need to clarify something. SCIENCE is not a word you throw around when something is complicated. Science in its most rigorous and true form is based around the scientific method. The scientific method is basically about falsifying things. NOT proving them. As many stoned philosophy majors and non-stoned science majors have conjectured, you can't really prove anything beyond a shadow of a doubt, either physically or logically. For philosophical beliefs, it seems like all it takes is someone to take a slightly different perspective before they arrive at a completely different conclusion with little to objectively argue about. With physical laws and such, there are so many variables even in even the simplest of realistic systems that we can never rule out completely that we haven't missed something crucial.
Anyway, with the magic of science, we can attempt to understand the mechanics that lie behind what we experience in the world, by using the scientific method. In its simplest form, you observe something, you make an educated guess on how you think it works (hypothesize), and then you go about experimenting to try and disprove your hypothesis. As I said, no one's figured out a good way to experiment to PROVE something, only to disprove something. In the real world, the wonders of science have some helpful conventions in the form of the scientific community, based mostly around scholarly journals. There are also some regulatory bodies so that human testing doesn't go bonkers and things like that. But in the end it boils down to disproving things, not proving them. And then repeating it, and reiterating it, and modifying it until everyone is so sick and tired of the subject and we've nearly run out of ways to try and disprove it and the hypothesis for how things work is turned into a respected theory on how things work.
Its true that a theory is actually quite sound compared to the usual connotation of the word theory. I'm sorry to say that some of my Christian brethren can misunderstand it like anyone else, and they often try to use it to defend themselves. You'll notice that the definition of science is dependent on experimentation for the purposes of falsehood. This would mean that to, oh say, use science on something like God or Ghosts or Cthulu or true love you would not be out to prove those things, but to try as hard as you can to disprove them. And that would require an experiment. As immaterial or at least intangible things, those previous listed things can't be experimented on and thus cannot be scientifically disproved. I would really appreciate it if people would stop trying to do that.
Now that's the first point, basically if you can't experiment on something repeatedly in a controlled environment, its not "scientific". So God isn't scientific and Creationism isn't "scientific" because you will never be able to run an experiment disproving those hypotheses for how the world works. The second point is a bit more traditional in the sense that I love Jesus a whole huggy bunch. And its that evolution as most people understand it isn't scientific either, or at least not right now it isn't.
Evolution is defined as the shift in allele frequency in a population. Basically that means that certain genetic traits will fluctuate in a population over time due to a variety of circumstances. Now this true form of evolution is an actual, scientific theory, for hopefully obvious reasons. We have observed and tested, and experimented in a whole lot of ways over a lot of time to find that, yes indeed, genetic traits do fluctuate in a population. Unfortunately, someone decided it would be a good idea to use that same very well defined word for a whole lot of vague happenings. The origin of species might be a good phrase for what evolution seems to mean for a lot of people. When people hear the word evolution, they think of the whole idea of fruit flies having spider babies. The idea that the diversity of species that we see today is a product of a completely unaided process called evolution through mutation is attached to that single word "evolution".
Now the question is if that larger, more colloquial definition of evolution is the sole mechanic by which the diversity of species that exists came to be. In order for us to answer that question scientifically we would need some observations. We have lots of those regarding the similarities and differences between organisms, and some of the better understood mechanics regarding their biology. Then we need a hypothesis or two to explain those observations. We have two of those, if not more. One of them is the aforementioned evolution, and the other is the uber-aforementioned creationism. The problem lies again with the disproving through experiment. We have no way to test these two hypotheses! We can dance around the subject and show that certain things are really hard to come by through evolution and other things are produced by evolution with time, but reproducing anything close to the amount of genetic change present between two classes of organisms requires multitudes of generations and way too much time, and the variables surrounding the experiment are just too great to control. Creationism can't be tested because it requires something a bit more potent than magic.
My point in that fairly ramblomatic session is that science is not equipped to satisfy either of these two hypotheses. It's not due to technology, but due to the nature of the hypotheses and the nature of science. Science is about disproving things, and one hypothesis requires infinite power that can get around any amount of disapproving experiments and the other has infinite amounts of time and "chance" that can get around any disapproving experiments.
And on a completely different but relevant point, both sides need to stop fighting over it. Christians need to remember that our God is not a God of philosophy, logical arguments, or science. He is a God or infinite power and wisdom that surpasses even the most strongly worded argument, the most rigorous experiment, or the most stoned hippy. Those are human constructs, and he made the very fabric that they are made out of. And the atheists can take a hint from this. If you aren't going to be swayed by logical arguments, philosophical treatises, or Bible thumping, we probably won't be swayed by your equivalents. Our God wins battles through hearts and relationships, not through swords or shouting matches.
Remember that I won't respect your insults if they have acronyms in the posts.
TL;DR
People often misunderstand what science is about and should reconsider its actual uses, like making microwave ovens cook faster.