The misinterpretation of evolution

[Asita]

I wanted this to be my first post, because I happen to feel strongly about this. I wanted to find out from you Asita, if Behavioral Evolution is a viable form of what Darwin was attempting to prove.

Take for instance Monkey's grown in labs still know and understand the value of grooming. Or domestic cats still have instinctual traits not taught to them. Isn't this evolution, or am I stupid? It seems instead of physical traits, we should be looking at mental or non-physical traits for proof of evolution.

Unfortunately, I'm not very familiar with that particular topic. The best I could do is point you to the relevant field of study (ethology)

 

[Shackels]

I have been reading this thread since it's creation, and I have to say. Asita, I sure have learned alot from reading your posts. Thank you for all the information and thought you have put into this.

Also, your passive and logical method of debate is certainly refreshing to a seasoned forum viewer/reader.

This. A million times this.
I learned quite a bit about evolution, and I was gravely misinformed on some things, and I accept evolution.
Asita, sir(that is, if you are male, I think you are; but I might just be being presumptuous),you are very intelligent. My hat's off to you.

EDIT:That is to say, I was one of those who accepted evolution way before this thread, and that I realized I was misinformed on the subject myself.

I wasn't ID or creationist. I'm anti-religion as it is.

 

[BrassButtons]

EDIT:That is to say, I was one of those who accepted evolution way before this thread, and that I realized I was misinformed on the subject myself.

Something I've noticed (and that I've been guilty of) is that many people seem to think evolution is simpler than it is. If you don't seriously study it or regularly talk to people who do, it's easy to get the impression that the simplified version you learned in grade school was the whole picture. It's one of those topics where you just don't realize how completely ignorant you are until you run into somebody who knows more than you.

And I would like to echo what others have said about Asita. Your posts are very well informed, and very level-headed. Sets a good example for the rest of us hooligans

 

[Shackels]

EDIT:That is to say, I was one of those who accepted evolution way before this thread, and that I realized I was misinformed on the subject myself.

Something I've noticed (and that I've been guilty of) is that many people seem to think evolution is simpler than it is. If you don't seriously study it or regularly talk to people who do, it's easy to get the impression that the simplified version you learned in grade school was the whole picture. It's one of those topics where you just don't realize how completely ignorant you are until you run into somebody who knows more than you.

And I would like to echo what others have said about Asita. Your posts are very well informed, and very level-headed. Sets a good example for the rest of us hooligans

The less you know about something, the more convinced you get that you know everything about it.

when I was a yellow belt in my Martial arts school, I thought I knew it all.
Now I'm a brown belt and am overwhelmed by how much I have yet to learn.

 

[Bradeck]

Personally, I take evolution to be the truth, and more so then a 2,000 year old zombie Jewish male being the son of an almighty being. But I still fail to see what the two have to do with each other.

One is a theory stating how man and other organisms arrived unto sentience, and the other is an amalgamation of man made beliefs taken from multiple sources and scriptures. And that's not just Christianity, ALL religions are man made. The bible is man made. The Qu'ran is man made, the Holy Books of Mormon, even the greatest freak show on Earth, Scientology! For all it's prostitution of bad science fiction literature, it's "books" are man made.

Why is their any conflict here?

 

[darkstarangel]

[to end it and then write your response. paste the tags around any section of the post you wanted to quote. Alternatively: Quote the whole thing and then simply refer to whatever section you were addressing at a given point in the follow-up.]

Thanks heaps for the hints. Bare with me till I get the hang of this thing. Also my internet connection crapped itself when I need it the most so im a bit limited in what I can post at the moment.

[You're completely neglecting the little detail of mutation causing genetic variation, instead focusing entirely on natural selection. This is like trying to disprove heavier-than-air flight by citing gravity and ignoring lift. Any given organism is born with mutations in their DNA. Most of these have little impact. A few have a positive impact on the organism's ability to survive and a few have a negative impact. Natural Selection culls the negative traits, while the positive and benign traits tend to accumulate. Over time this results in populations that can be very different than their ancestral strain]

No im not neglecting the little detail of mutation. Minor mutations can linger around & some can have significant effects such as the often mentioned sickle-cell anaemia & progeria which causes rapid aging in children. Both are due to a single base mutation. The fact is we endure constant mutations in every cell all through our lives but our proof reading enzymes Polymerase 3 sifts them out over time. Even mutations that are inherited the repairing will be carried out by the offsprings enzymes. I highly recommend Michael J. Behes Darwins blackbox to understand this in more detail.
Very rarely will a mutation be beneficial but when it does its not always an improvement. If for example a hydrolase enzymes active site lost its specificity to a substrate it could possibly hydrolyse anything but it would be a drawback for regulation because their could be no specific reactions or regulation.

Natural selection only works on functioning traits (besides the fatal ones ofcourse) & those traits have to be necessary for survival otherwise they can remain within a genome. It also cannot direct benign mutations, which includes beneficial mutations as an organ or gland needs to be complete for it to fulfill its function. The reason I gave that prediction at the end of my last post was to emphasise this point directly. If a trait is to be born from a mutation it needs to become a particular sequence. Mutations are random & can go in any direction. Natural selection will eliminate the fatal but all are neutral (or benign) until it is finished & even its outcome can be random (it could become an enzyme for a substrate it will never come into contact with or produced in/on a part of the body that wont make contact with its substrate).

[If it was a homozygous trait as you are suggesting then it would be exhibited in the source population. Assuming that a trait needs to be homozygous to be expressed and both parents are carriers by virtue of being heterozygous for it, then 50% of their offspring could be expected to be heterozygous like their parents, 25% would be homozygous for the trait and thus express it, and 25% would lack it entirely. This does not mesh with your proposed explanation of the source population being heterozygous for it. The discovery's nature was so novel specifically because it was never exhibited in the ancestral population, which incidentally still exists on the island Pod Kopiste. In proper context, '1 percent of all known species' doesn't mean 'within every species 1% of the population has this trait'. It means '1% of the species have this trait'.]

The article I posted said all scaled reptiles but either way its still irrelevant. Also your ruling out polygenic alleles which alot of genes are. Having caecal valves large enough to contain the nematodes for rumination will keep those multiple alleles contained within its own population. Also you statement that it was NEVER exhibited in the ancestral trait would suggest that every lizard under that catagory was examined to see if it had large, small or any caecal valves. Remember that in science not everything can be accurately measured entirely. Even a ruler has a margin of error.

[Plasmids are produced by bacteria]

Plasmids are stored &/or replicated by a bacteria, they dont make them from scratch. (if thats what you were implying)

[I can say with some certainty that they do not provide a workable explanation for Lenski's E.Coli due to 1) The controlled nature of the experiment, 2) The manner in which they were able to reproduce the success in a portion of the cloned populations, noting that a key mutation occured somewhere around generation 31,000 to 31,500 with a rate that indicated it likely capitalized off of an earlier mutation, an 3) That's the kind of detail that gets noticed in peer review.]
[or wheter you think that scientists specializing in microbial research would neglect a detail like that, and that all of their peers who'd review the paper would make the same mistake.]

I havent read the original article so I dont any other relevant data. It could have been a case such like the example I gave with the hydrolysing enzyme. In which case the enzyme needs to be further tested, especially for specificity. But still, my explanation is just as valid especially since the experiment was repeatable. Again with the lizards, not every bacteria is going to be genetically tested & it is impossible to determine if all had the plasmid or not, even spliced into its genome. And it depends on the journal that publishes it. Reports on many valid experiments have been knocked back on account of not being 'dynamic' enough (as a plant biologist friend of mine has constantly experienced) & this is understandable because not every little report produced is going to be printed its just not possible so only the reports that stick out get the most attention. It would'nt surprise me if plasmid transfer was originally suggested.

[If you want to go that route, then the classification system itself is superficial as it is primarily based on physical traits.]

That was my original point.

[I'm aware. I chose the Rutherford model as an example because its deposition of the Plum Pudding model was something I thought would ring a bell with more people, given that it had a very simple experiment and a more extreme model shift than the Bohr model replacing the Rutherford model. So I have to wonder what your point is here especially considering that the example was used in the context of explaining why models shift.]

My point WAS model shifts. I was going to use it earlier but you originally used the example.

[Well first of all, please stay on topic. Abiogenesis is distinct from evolutionary theory. Secondly, I hope you'll forgive me if I take that with a grain of salt, especially considering that organisms reproduce at the cellular level, not the atomic level the claim of which makes your claim of sufficient knowledge seem far less likely. No offense. Additionally, I'd point out that what you're arguing here is a fallacy known as 'argument from incredulity' and I sincerely doubt you have the expertise in the relevant fields to make that claim with any certainty.]

Actually I used abiogenesis as an example & you pushed it toward that topic. I may not have the expertise YET but im pretty sure I mentioned that im studying a degree in biomolecular science, which includes both chemistry (organic & inorganic) & cellular biology so I do understand the concepts including reproducing/existing at the cellular level what occurs at the atomic level to make it happen. Thats why when it comes to biological &chemical evolution my lecturers & researchers take the theory with a grain of salt even if they believe in it.

[Ok, I think we've still got some wording issues here, because I can read that going either way. Are you saying you were a creationist before you rejected evolution or you rejected evolution before you became a creationist?]

I accepted evolution before & during becoming a creationist & could have happily become a theistic evolutionist. I examined & critisized evolution some time after that which just happened to work with my personal faith. Technically I could become a buddhist tomorrow but it still wont change my opinion on evolution because of what I know.

[Lack of knowledge is not contradictory. Lack of knowledge is simply indicative of something we could understand better.]

True. This is why predictions & models are devised. This is where evidence can either support or conflict, which is why I originally brought up the atomic models. Sometimes there is data that cant explain an event which is also why I mentioned that we cant truly know the past. But based off what we know we determine whether theyre realistic or not. Conversion of an XY chromosomes to WZ is such an example & has thus divided the evolutionary community into those who accept dinosaur to bird evolution & those who reject it. Again, why I mentioned the superficiality of evolution, this is a case where the genotype conflicts with the phenotype within the theory.

[Stop right there. First of all, mutations are still part of the genome. They do not separate when they mutate, nor do they cause the strand as a whole to cease functioning. A mutation is a transcription error (via insertion, duplication, deletion or replacement) in the DNA (or RNA) replication process, the exact effects of which (benign, negative, positive) vary based on where and how the transcription error took place. If I'm reading you right, you are treating it as if mutations somehow don't count unless an incredible number of them become independent. By all appearances you take this misunderstanding and run with it in such a way that I can only wonder where you learned about genetics.]

Actually I believe I shall continue. Your knowledge on genetics needs some serious updating. There is no junk DNA its non-protein coding DNA now & its found to be what regulates all genetic processes, alot of which is needed for foetal development. Reciting your own words [Lack of knowledge is not contradictory. Lack of knowledge is simply indicative of something we could understand better] has been relevant in understanding its use since previously it was not understood & assumed no function since it only transcribed RNA but never replicated them. There is also the epigenome which plays a major role also. Now im starting to wonder where you learned about genetics.

However this example was a demonstration of critical analysis which every scientist must do & I as a scientist in training am practising. We are allowed to question evolution so long as we use evidence, knowledge & predictions to do so. Thats even how evolutionary theories are devised & rejected in the first place. What I have been doing is no crime nor is it ignorant as some on this forum have accused me of.

[Mmm, you can't prove a negative, but it is actually very easy to prove a given statement false if the data lines up with it. Case in point: There's an elephant in your room. Very easy to disprove. And the inverse: You're literate. Now obviously I can't prove that myself, but the very fact that you're posting and replying on a forum presents very strong evidence that you are in fact literate.]

I was actually going deep with this one. One of those question your own sanity concepts. You may not believe me that I had an elephant in my room but by going with chance it seems unlikely. Ofcourse to me it may seem like their is an elephant but since my senses are subject to failure or manipulation I could very well be wrong. As L.R. Hubbard ironically stated 'The only person who doesnt think he's mad is the madman.'

[Again, not difficult. [/quote]View Post:]

Ill need some practice with this one but cheers for the input & your patience.

 

[Cowabungaa]

No, it is not proven.

Except that it is. There's a huge difference between the fact of evolution and the theory of evolution, it's the biggest misconception about evolution.

It's simply a fact that evolution has happened, as we can simply see that life has developed itself over a couple of billion years; different critters walked around during different periods of Earth's history. Done. Evolutional theory is about how this has happened, and that of course isn't fully explained yet.

It's a very clear and, I think, not even a very difficult distinction. Yet people just don't seem to get it. But many people also don't seem to get that the theory of evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life, or many of the other widespread misconceptions about this whole spiel. It's depressing really.

the quoter replies to this that belief has no place in the matters of science. Which, as I said is the line that I took issue with, not the post as a hole.

Whether you take issue with it or not, that poster is right if the person in question works in that field as a scientist. He'd perform shoddy science if he'd just go and believe stuff about his work. He can do whatever he wants in his spare time, but on the work floor that behavior has no place, it goes against what doing science is about.

 

[JFrog84]

No, it is not proven.

Except that it is. There's a huge difference between the fact of evolution and the theory of evolution, it's the biggest misconception about evolution.

It's simply a fact that evolution has happened, as we can simply see that life has developed itself over a couple of billion years; different critters walked around during different periods of Earth's history. Done. Evolutional theory is about how this has happened, and that of course isn't fully explained yet.

It's a very clear and, I think, not even a very difficult distinction. Yet people just don't seem to get it. But many people also don't seem to get that the theory of evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life, or many of the other widespread misconceptions about this whole spiel. It's depressing really.

the quoter replies to this that belief has no place in the matters of science. Which, as I said is the line that I took issue with, not the post as a hole.

Whether you take issue with it or not, that poster is right if the person in question works in that field as a scientist. He'd perform shoddy science if he'd just go and believe stuff about his work. He can do whatever he wants in his spare time, but on the work floor that behavior has no place, it goes against what doing science is about.

Read the rest of the conversation and you wont be so confused

 

[Cowabungaa]

Read the rest of the conversation and you wont be so confused

Am I confused? I don't feel confused. What should I be confused about?

 

[Asita]

No im not neglecting the little detail of mutation. Minor mutations can linger around & some can have significant effects such as the often mentioned sickle-cell anaemia & progeria which causes rapid aging in children. Both are due to a single base mutation. The fact is we endure constant mutations in every cell all through our lives but our proof reading enzymes Polymerase 3 sifts them out over time. Even mutations that are inherited the repairing will be carried out by the offsprings enzymes. I highly recommend Michael J. Behes Darwins blackbox to understand this in more detail.

Hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but "Darwin's Black Box" has no standing in the scientific community which considers the claims made to be disingenuous pseudoscience, making use of quote mines, cherry picking data, and championing a false dichotomy which would have us believe that if evolution was rejected one day Creationism/Intelligent Design would be the only alternative. Additionally, of the 5 people Behe cites as having peer reviewed the book, 3 claimed that Behe's conclusions lacked support and a fourth claimed that he'd never even gotten to read the book.

Additionally, while it is true that DNA has a 'proofreading' mechanism, it is not a perfect mechanism and does not work to fix inherited mutations. In fact, that specific claim is rather curious considering that if a mutation is inherited then the checking mechanism will actually work to ensure it stays there, as the only genetic code it's ever known is the one with that mutation. In order for the concept to work in the first place it would have to try to recreate the DNA of the parents rather than the individual's genetic code, which excludes the concept by being identical to neither parent. Of course, the entire point has a weird base in the first place as a mutation is quite literally a transcription error that the checking mechanism missed in the first place.

Very rarely will a mutation be beneficial but when it does its not always an improvement. If for example a hydrolase enzymes active site lost its specificity to a substrate it could possibly hydrolyse anything but it would be a drawback for regulation because their could be no specific reactions or regulation.

Well first of all, I'd like to point out that you look like you've just contradicted yourself, basically saying that a beneficial mutation doesn't necessarily benefit the organism. By definition, if something is beneficial then it works in favor of the organism. Best I can figure, what you're trying to argue is a beneficial trait that comes with some kind of drawback in another area that affects the organism to a lesser extent (I qualify it thus because if the drawback affected the organism to a greater extent than the trait they improved on, the mutation would by definition not be beneficial). If so, I'd point out that the idea is not at odds with evolutionary theory, which actually expects such a thing. It's known as specialisation. Do note, we have a variety of species which can survive in any number of enviroments, and those which are so specialized that any change in their environment threatens their very existence (the latter of which are often used as early indicators of environmental change and/or the impact of humans on a given environment).

Natural selection only works on functioning traits (besides the fatal ones ofcourse) & those traits have to be necessary for survival otherwise they can remain within a genome.

So then you agree that natural selection tends to cull the traits that put the organism at a disadvantage in its environment and favor the ones that conver an advantage while neutral mutations are neither selected for or against?

It also cannot direct benign mutations, which includes beneficial mutations as an organ or gland needs to be complete for it to fulfill its function.

Mmm, not true. This is based on a common misconception that any given organ has to appear fully formed and that the eventual trait has to be directly related to its prececessors. Honestly though I think the video I priorly linked (Qualiasoup's Irreducible Complexity Cut Down to Size) addresses both concepts quite well. (To save you some time, the former is exemplified starting at around 1:10 into the video, the latter starting at around 7:47). I know, it's not the exact argument you were making, but the base concept behind it was distinctly similar.

The reason I gave that prediction at the end of my last post was to emphasise this point directly. If a trait is to be born from a mutation it needs to become a particular sequence.

Not really. A given mutation can condone a trait in and of itself. The sickle-cell trait, for instance, stems from the mutation of a single nucleotide, causing at least some of the blood produced to have a sickle shape instead of a doughnut one.

Mutations are random & can go in any direction. Natural selection will eliminate the fatal but all are neutral (or benign) until it is finished & even its outcome can be random (it could become an enzyme for a substrate it will never come into contact with or produced in/on a part of the body that wont make contact with its substrate).

Call me crazy, but it sounds to me like you're making heavy use of a form of hindsight bias here, likely combined with the aforementioned issue of assuming a lack of preceding traits.

[If it was a homozygous trait as you are suggesting then it would be exhibited in the source population. Assuming that a trait needs to be homozygous to be expressed and both parents are carriers by virtue of being heterozygous for it, then 50% of their offspring could be expected to be heterozygous like their parents, 25% would be homozygous for the trait and thus express it, and 25% would lack it entirely. This does not mesh with your proposed explanation of the source population being heterozygous for it. The discovery's nature was so novel specifically because it was never exhibited in the ancestral population, which incidentally still exists on the island Pod Kopiste. In proper context, '1 percent of all known species' doesn't mean 'within every species 1% of the population has this trait'. It means '1% of the species have this trait'.]

The article I posted said all scaled reptiles but either way its still irrelevant.

Again, I addressed that. The meaning was that 1% of reptilian species had the trait, not that 1% of every species of scaled reptiles had it

Also your ruling out polygenic alleles which alot of genes are. Having caecal valves large enough to contain the nematodes for rumination will keep those multiple alleles contained within its own population. Also you statement that it was NEVER exhibited in the ancestral trait would suggest that every lizard under that catagory was examined to see if it had large, small or any caecal valves. Remember that in science not everything can be accurately measured entirely. Even a ruler has a margin of error.

Let me remind you, Darkstar, that the source population in question still exists for comparison.

Plasmids are stored &/or replicated by a bacteria, they dont make them from scratch. (if thats what you were implying)

Truth be told, I thought I'd deleted that line :/

I havent read the original article so I dont any other relevant data. It could have been a case such like the example I gave with the hydrolysing enzyme. In which case the enzyme needs to be further tested, especially for specificity. But still, my explanation is just as valid especially since the experiment was repeatable. Again with the lizards, not every bacteria is going to be genetically tested & it is impossible to determine if all had the plasmid or not, even spliced into its genome.

Now you're just being unreasonable and making use of a fallacy known as argument from ignorance ("This statement is true because it cannot be 100% proven false"...though to your credit you aren't taking it to the "I'm right" extreme). Were I to draw a comparison to the argument, I think I'd have to go with the dismissal of a doctor saying that his patient's tests indicated he didn't have cancer, on the grounds that the doctor obviously didn't test every single cell in the patient's body for it.

[If you want to go that route, then the classification system itself is superficial as it is primarily based on physical traits.]

That was my original point.

You do realize that by doing so you put life under one category, which effectively emphasizes common ancestry, do you not?

My point WAS model shifts. I was going to use it earlier but you originally used the example.

Oh, I thought you were dismissing my example on the grounds that the Rutherford model I showed supplanting the pudding model ended up itself being replaced by the bohr model (which incidentally does bear a noticeable resemblance to the Rutherford Model, refining the details of it instead of starting from the ground up). I apologize for misunderstanding your gist then.

...reproducing/existing at the cellular level what occurs at the atomic level to make it happen.

You mean in the same sense that making synthetic fibers does?

I accepted evolution before & during becoming a creationist & could have happily become a theistic evolutionist. I examined & critisized evolution some time after that which just happened to work with my personal faith. Technically I could become a buddhist tomorrow but it still wont change my opinion on evolution because of what I know.

Thank you for the clarification.

Sometimes there is data that cant explain an event which is also why I mentioned that we cant truly know the past. But based off what we know we determine whether theyre realistic or not. Conversion of an XY chromosomes to WZ is such an example & has thus divided the evolutionary community into those who accept dinosaur to bird evolution & those who reject it.

I do believe Dinwar addressed that part in post 749. Let me go ahead and quote him.

Nobody has yet given me a reasonable explanation how an XY chromosomes suddenly become WZ chromosomes without any repercussions to the birds or insects.

Essentials of Genetics, Fifth Edition, by Klug and Cummings. By the way, the mistake you're making is assuming that all genes are HOX genes. You can actually change a wide range of genes in fruit flies, with clear macroscopic morphological ramifications but without killing the fly--things like making the antenna turn into legs, or adding extra wings, and the like. They get into that in Essentials of Genetics, and I know a number of researchers who use these as proxies for mutation rates.

Secondly, to more accurately address the issue you raised: "ramifications" are what evolution is based on. A neutral mutation--say, a third codon replacement or the like--won't be selected for or against. Such mutations are the basis for molecular clocks. If the mutation is NOT neutral, it'll either be beneficial, detrimental, or a mixture of the two (the last option is the most common). The organism as a whole moves through fitness space as the population evolves, meaning that even beneficial mutations may be lost if other mutations are detrimental and kill off the organism. But if a trait is selected for it's certainly not without ramifications--the increase in the portion of the population with that gene, or even the fixation of that gene, are clear beneficial ramifications of one gene turning into another gene.

Actually I believe I shall continue. Your knowledge on genetics needs some serious updating. There is no junk DNA its non-protein coding DNA now & its found to be what regulates all genetic processes, alot of which is needed for foetal development. Reciting your own words [Lack of knowledge is not contradictory. Lack of knowledge is simply indicative of something we could understand better] has been relevant in understanding its use since previously it was not understood & assumed no function since it only transcribed RNA but never replicated them. There is also the epigenome which plays a major role also. Now im starting to wonder where you learned about genetics.

Well thank you for correcting my use of an outdated term. And while it is true that a good portion has been shown to have function of some sort, there is evidence that suggests that portions of the DNA have no current function (They may or may not have had function in ancestral populatons). One of the more famous examples leading to this conclusion would be this.

However this example was a demonstration of critical analysis which every scientist must do & I as a scientist in training am practising. We are allowed to question evolution so long as we use evidence, knowledge & predictions to do so. Thats even how evolutionary theories are devised & rejected in the first place. What I have been doing is no crime nor is it ignorant as some on this forum have accused me of.

Criminal, no. With regards to this particular topic though ignorance being the source of objections is prevalent enough to almost be considered a constant.

I was actually going deep with this one. One of those question your own sanity concepts. You may not believe me that I had an elephant in my room but by going with chance it seems unlikely. Ofcourse to me it may seem like their is an elephant but since my senses are subject to failure or manipulation I could very well be wrong. As L.R. Hubbard ironically stated 'The only person who doesnt think he's mad is the madman.'

So you were going philosophical there? Fair enough.

[Again, not difficult. [ /quote]View Post:]

Ill need some practice with this one but cheers for the input & your patience.

Well you're getting there. You just forgot the

before the post. Personally though, I'd just click the 'quote' button until the post's text shows up in the reply box, then copy/past the opening bit (which, for this particular post, would look like this:

) at the start of any section you want in the quote and [ /quote] (minus the space, of course) at the end of the segment you want in the quote. Repeat as many times as needed for a given post to divide it up.

 

[JamesWebber]

sorry i though that i had actually posted this link on my original post. here it is.http://listverse.com/2008/02/19/top-15-misconceptions-about-evolution/

 

[Something Amyss]

By "came about" i refer to the world coming to the place in time it is today. In other words, how the world CHANGED or EVOLVED into the state it currently embodies. Yes, something that "came about" can mean how it was created, but it also refers to how something came to resemble what we know it as.

You've still offered a wonderful demonstration of exactly how someone can be objectively wrong about evolution.

 

[Dinwatr]

You are well within your rights to claim that someone is incorrect, that is acceptable, but never, ever, claim that someone who does not agree with you is simply "misinformed about evolution".

Anyone who believes that evolution is wrong is either misinformed, too ignorant to hold a valid (informed) opinion, or is a liar. There are no other options. An honest examination of the paleontological data, the anotomical data, the biochemical data, OR the genetic data--any individually--would be sufficient to demonstrate the validity of the theory of evolution. Anyone who disagrees with the theory either has not examined the data, or did not do so honestly.

If you don't like that, tough. The world doesn't care one way or another about your opinions--existence exists.

Natural selection only works on functioning traits (besides the fatal ones ofcourse) & those traits have to be necessary for survival otherwise they can remain within a genome.

This is called adaptionism, and has been shown to be horribly flawed by Gould and someone else who's name escapes me. I don't need to bother with the rest of your post--this is such a flawed premise that the rest cannot hope to be right. You need to update your understanding of the theory of evolution to at least the stuff that's only been outdated for 20 or 30 years. You're currently stuck in the 1900s to 1920s.

However this example was a demonstration of critical analysis which every scientist must do & I as a scientist in training am practising. We are allowed to question evolution so long as we use evidence, knowledge & predictions to do so.

As a practicing scientist, please allow me to give you some advice: know when you don't understand enough to hold an informed opinion, and avoid commenting on topics for which you do not hold informed opinions. Your lack of understanding of evolution is abundantly clear, to the point where I seriously question your dedication to researching the topic. Most of your criticisms have been more than adequately dealt with, or are of Creationist-created straw men. If you're searious about becoming a scientist, I strongly, STRONGLY recommend getting into the primary sources--and here I mean Science, Nature, Paleontology, BioOne, Paleontological Electronica, the Geological Society of America Special Papers, even the USGS Open File Reports. Any one of these can show more than adequately the flaws in the arguments you're making. If you are unwilling to put forth the decade or more of effort it takes to gain a deep understanding of the subject (and I don't count myself among those who have such an understanding, by the way--I know my field, and that's all I claim to know), your intellectual honesty should forbid you from commenting on the topic. If you insist on commenting when you fail to pursue the primary literature, you will have revealed your lack of honesty in claiming to be a scientist in training.

Here are a few resources to get you started (on my bookshielf right now): "Essentials of Genetics", "Future Evolution", Evolutionary Analysis", "Evoluiton: The Triumph of an Idea", "Wonderful Life", "Earth: Portrait of a Planet", "Darwin's Century", "Gorgon". All are either textbooks, or popular press books written by very good scientists (specifically Steven J. Gould and Peter Ward). I recommend going to Librivox.org and downloading Darwin's "On the Origin of the Species", and if you can get ahold of it Lyelle's "Principles of Geology" (remember, deep time is a geologic, not a biological, concept).

 

[darkstarangel]

Thanks for your patience, my internet crapped itself & the one iv been using is slow. Infact I didnt even think my last reply actually came through. Anyway lets give this a try.

[/quote]Hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but "Darwin's Black Box" has no standing in the scientific community which considers the claims made to be disingenuous pseudoscience, making use of quote mines, cherry picking data, and championing a false dichotomy which would have us believe that if evolution was rejected one day Creationism/Intelligent Design would be the only alternative. Additionally, of the 5 people Behe cites as having peer reviewed the book, 3 claimed that Behe's conclusions lacked support and a fourth claimed that he'd never even gotten to read the book.[/quote]

My copy is the 10th aniversary edition where he added & edited some chapters. Dont know about the peer reviews but the information about the examples he uses & his revealing of their irreducible complexity are whats really important.
Also, for those who seem to lack understanding of what irreducible complexity is, its in the name. Irreducible complexity=a complex system where any reduction either negatively affects or shuts down the system completely. Car engines run off the same principle & its also why we have certain diseases & conditions. Behe highlights how such systems, especially those necessary for life, cannot arise in a step by step fasion even with by proxy mechanisms (& naturally. If by proxy mechanisms did the job satisfactorally then they wouldnt need to be replaced)

[/quote]Additionally, while it is true that DNA has a 'proofreading' mechanism, it is not a perfect mechanism and does not work to fix inherited mutations. In fact, that specific claim is rather curious considering that if a mutation is inherited then the checking mechanism will actually work to ensure it stays there, as the only genetic code it's ever known is the one with that mutation. In order for the concept to work in the first place it would have to try to recreate the DNA of the parents rather than the individual's genetic code, which excludes the concept by being identical to neither parent. Of course, the entire point has a weird base in the first place as a mutation is quite literally a transcription error that the checking mechanism missed in the first place.[/quote]

I had a book which explained an experiment where fruit flies were bread with the genes for their eyes removed & interbred to produce eyeles offspring. The 7th or 8th generation started producing flies with eyes & genetic examination revealled that each generation was gradually repairing the missing gene & then passing it onto their offspring. I cant remember what the book was but I originally thought was darwins black box until I went to look for it again. But anyway, true it can miss a few bases which may occur on the non-coding regions, atleast thats my theory anyway. But a few are hardly the necessary amount to produce a protein with an entirely different function or chain length let alone the complex that it functions with or its reguatory systems. You should seriously check out protein structures in greater depth to understand what im getting at.

[/quote] Well first of all, I'd like to point out that you look like you've just contradicted yourself, basically saying that a beneficial mutation doesn't necessarily benefit the organism. By definition, if something is beneficial then it works in favor of the organism. Best I can figure, what you're trying to argue is a beneficial trait that comes with some kind of drawback in another area that affects the organism to a lesser extent (I qualify it thus because if the drawback affected the organism to a greater extent than the trait they improved on, the mutation would by definition not be beneficial). If so, I'd point out that the idea is not at odds with evolutionary theory, which actually expects such a thing. It's known as specialisation. Do note, we have a variety of species which can survive in any number of enviroments, and those which are so specialized that any change in their environment threatens their very existence (the latter of which are often used as early indicators of environmental change and/or the impact of humans on a given environment).[/quote]
Not really contradicting just speculating an idea but it wouldnt work anyway. Active sites need those R-groups for molecule orientation & because glucose monomers are bonded by both their hydroxyl groups it would require multiple steps withing that reaction which wont successfully happen with random colisions.
Because nearly every metabolic & biochemical pathway interweave & either work with or around each other a change can indeed affect one or more other systems which is a draw back (& why doctors ask about one area of our bodies when a condition affects an entirely different part). Evolution doesnt account for why ALL components co-operate with each other within all organisms. All species have a degree of adaptability due to inbuilt mechanisms that accompany the change. Specialisation is either due to a loss of some mechanisms (which must have slipped under the polymerases enzymes) or they die when taken from their environment suddenly rather than gradually. The former would be a dead end for evolution.

[/quote]So then you agree that natural selection tends to cull the traits that put the organism at a disadvantage in its environment and favor the ones that conver an advantage while neutral mutations are neither selected for or against?[/quote]

Yep. Sorry I thought I mentioned that earlier. I try to because somehow a rumour spread around suggesting that creationists dont believe in natural selection for some reason.

[/quote]darkstarangel:
It also cannot direct benign mutations, which includes beneficial mutations as an organ or gland needs to be complete for it to fulfill its function.

Mmm, not true. This is based on a common misconception that any given organ has to appear fully formed and that the eventual trait has to be directly related to its prececessors. Honestly though I think the video I priorly linked (Qualiasoup's Irreducible Complexity Cut Down to Size) addresses both concepts quite well. (To save you some time, the former is exemplified starting at around 1:10 into the video, the latter starting at around 7:47). I know, it's not the exact argument you were making, but the base concept behind it was distinctly similar.[/quote]

Ill check the video when I have time to kill. I dont know where you were going here but organs perform multiple functions & kind of need to actually work to do its job. Mutations arent directed as they dont affect the phenotype in anyway so nothing is going to gide its direction. Each transitional mutation needs something to decide which mutations to keep & which to discard which can only happen in the genotype, otherwise all organisms should be full of tissues, glands & organs that havent quite made it yet if at all.

[/quote]Call me crazy, but it sounds to me like you're making heavy use of a form of hindsight bias here, likely combined with the aforementioned issue of assuming a lack of preceding traits.

[If it was a homozygous trait as you are suggesting then it would be exhibited in the source population. Assuming that a trait needs to be homozygous to be expressed and both parents are carriers by virtue of being heterozygous for it, then 50% of their offspring could be expected to be heterozygous like their parents, 25% would be homozygous for the trait and thus express it, and 25% would lack it entirely. This does not mesh with your proposed explanation of the source population being heterozygous for it. The discovery's nature was so novel specifically because it was never exhibited in the ancestral population, which incidentally still exists on the island Pod Kopiste. In proper context, '1 percent of all known species' doesn't mean 'within every species 1% of the population has this trait'. It means '1% of the species have this trait'.][/quote]

Hindsight bias? Please elaborate. And I can only assume a lack of preceeding traits if the traits arent present, but only assume.
Oh, and your crazy.

[/quote]Again, I addressed that. The meaning was that 1% of reptilian species had the trait, not that 1% of every species of scaled reptiles had it[/quote]

Acknowledged & thanks for the detail. It still doesnt affect my original point but I always appreciate detail.

[/quote]Now you're just being unreasonable and making use of a fallacy known as argument from ignorance ("This statement is true because it cannot be 100% proven false"...though to your credit you aren't taking it to the "I'm right" extreme). Were I to draw a comparison to the argument, I think I'd have to go with the dismissal of a doctor saying that his patient's tests indicated he didn't have cancer, on the grounds that the doctor obviously didn't test every single cell in the patient's body for it.[/quote]

Actually Im perfectly reasonable & it was perfectly valid reasoning. This is why we make such discoveries because we investigate. I wonder if those lizards on that island would have been checked for caecal valves if their physical appearence hadnt changed & merely resembled the ancestral species. But its true that in science have to apply assumptions simply because its cheap, easy & cost effective & why alot alot of discoveries are made by accident.

[/quote]darkstarangel:
[If you want to go that route, then the classification system itself is superficial as it is primarily based on physical traits.]

That was my original point.

You do realize that by doing so you put life under one category, which effectively emphasizes common ancestry, do you not?[/quote]

Only if you interpret it that way. I never outrightly stated that just that alot of organisms share similar physical & biochemical traits. As a creationist I can just as easily interpet it as common design as much as darwinists interpret it to common descent.

[/quote]My point WAS model shifts. I was going to use it earlier but you originally used the example.

Oh, I thought you were dismissing my example on the grounds that the Rutherford model I showed supplanting the pudding model ended up itself being replaced by the bohr model (which incidentally does bear a noticeable resemblance to the Rutherford Model, refining the details of it instead of starting from the ground up). I apologize for misunderstanding your gist then.[/quote]

Your cool. It was a top example too.

[/quote]...reproducing/existing at the cellular level what occurs at the atomic level to make it happen.

You mean in the same sense that making synthetic fibers does?[/quote]

Well, I meant that the chemical properties are what makes everything happen at the cellular level but I cant remember what the original comment was about. I suppose you could consider synthetic fibres as a biochemical function since humans make them but thats delving into the external & tinkering around philosophical borders if anyone cares to go there.

[/quote] I do believe Dinwar addressed that part in post 749.[/quote]

He did but he didnt. I wasnt just talking about HOX genes & his example was a man made one. Im talking about the theory that genes jumping from one chromosome to another & why would they. They're also sex chromosomes too so they dont pair either.

[/quote]Well thank you for correcting my use of an outdated term. And while it is true that a good portion has been shown to have function of some sort, there is evidence that suggests that portions of the DNA have no current function (They may or may not have had function in ancestral populatons). One of the more famous examples leading to this conclusion would be this.[/quote]

Not just outdated term but outdated paper. That was written in 2004 a year after 'Junk' DNA was discovered to be purposeful & also when everyone was seriously hesitant to let that concept go. One of my lecturers works at the garven institute where he works on non-protein coding DNA to find cancers, he says its all regulatory & from his diagrams bloody complicated too.

However this example was a demonstration of critical analysis which every scientist must do & I as a scientist in training am practising. We are allowed to question evolution so long as we use evidence, knowledge & predictions to do so. Thats even how evolutionary theories are devised & rejected in the first place. What I have been doing is no crime nor is it ignorant as some on this forum have accused me of.

Criminal, no. With regards to this particular topic though ignorance being the source of objections is prevalent enough to almost be considered a constant.

Hardly ignorant, iv ignored nothing. Just because you disagree with a person who objects to your opinion doesnt make them ignorant.

[/quote]Well you're getting there. You just forgot the

before the post. Personally though, I'd just click the 'quote' button until the post's text shows up in the reply box, then copy/past the opening bit (which, for this particular post, would look like this:

) at the start of any section you want in the quote and [ /quote] (minus the space, of course) at the end of the segment you want in the quote. Repeat as many times as needed for a given post to divide it up.

Thanks again. Lets see how it goes this time.

 

[Asita]

My copy is the 10th aniversary edition where he added & edited some chapters. Dont know about the peer reviews but the information about the examples he uses & his revealing of their irreducible complexity are whats really important.

Again, Irreducible Complexity is literally a falacy known as argument from incredulity, and is considered pseudoscience at best, relying implicitly on ignorance of how something formed to make the claim in the first place, following it up with another fallacy known as false dichotomy to claim that design is thenceforth the only argument. Additionally, the base claim of it has long since been refuted, as was noted in Kitzmiller v. Dover, where the judge noted, and I quote: "Professor Behe conceded that the proposed test could not approximate real world conditions and even if it could, Professor Minnich admitted that it would merely be a test of evolution, not design. (22:107-10 (Behe); 2:15 (Miller); 38:82 (Minnich)). We therefore find that Professor Behe?s claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large. (17:45-46 (Padian); 3:99 (Miller)). Additionally, even if irreducible complexity had not been rejected, it still does not support ID as it is merely a test for evolution, not design. (2:15, 2:35-40 (Miller); 28:63-66 (Fuller))." (Page 79 of Judge E. Jones III's write up regarding his ruling). And again, the links I provided priorly address the failings of Irreducible Complexity rather well.

I had a book which explained an experiment where fruit flies were bread with the genes for their eyes removed & interbred to produce eyeles offspring. The 7th or 8th generation started producing flies with eyes & genetic examination revealled that each generation was gradually repairing the missing gene & then passing it onto their offspring. I cant remember what the book was but I originally thought was darwins black box until I went to look for it again.

Unfortunately, the lack of citation makes it hard to evaluate the claim, which could have any number of explanations including atavism. Additionally, there's also the possibility that you either misinterpreted or misremembered the conclusion that we have to take into account. I've only done a quick search on the matter, but I am getting some hits, the most prominent of which focused on 'activating' and 'deactivating' a 'Master control gene' for the eye based on whether or not another gene was present, making the results comparable to any given trait that needs to be homozygous to be expressed (such as Haemophilia). Amusingly though, the so-called "Eyeless" gene (aka PAX6) seems to be more famous for producing additional eyes (such as on the wings and legs) than it is for getting rid of them.

But anyway, true it can miss a few bases which may occur on the non-coding regions, atleast thats my theory anyway. But a few are hardly the necessary amount to produce a protein with an entirely different function or chain length let alone the complex that it functions with or its reguatory systems. You should seriously check out protein structures in greater depth to understand what im getting at.

CCR5-Ä32: base pair mutation of the CCR5 protein. Deletes a segment of the gene, which directly affects the function of T-Cells. Said mutation grants resistance to smallpox and (most amazingly) certain strains of HIV. 5-14% of people of European descent have this mutation, lending to the conclusion that it was first expressed there and was selected for during an epidemic of smallpox or during the Black Death.

More important though, you're still falling into that age-old creationist mental trap where you're suggesting that something has to either happen 'now or never'. Change can be gradual, building up off of prior traits, eventually building up to something greater. How to put it...Let's say you have a brick. Not much you can do with it, right? On its own it is fairly useless. Though you could use it as a hammer or a throwing weapon, I suppose, so it does have some function. Now let's say you got another brick. And another and another...suddenly you can make a wall. It's not a great wall, but you can block a cave with it and thus protect yourself from the elements and wild animals. The key point that I'm trying to get at here is that accumulation allows for more dramatic expression than any single change on its own.

Well first of all, I'd like to point out that you look like you've just contradicted yourself, basically saying that a beneficial mutation doesn't necessarily benefit the organism. By definition, if something is beneficial then it works in favor of the organism. Best I can figure, what you're trying to argue is a beneficial trait that comes with some kind of drawback in another area that affects the organism to a lesser extent (I qualify it thus because if the drawback affected the organism to a greater extent than the trait they improved on, the mutation would by definition not be beneficial). If so, I'd point out that the idea is not at odds with evolutionary theory, which actually expects such a thing. It's known as specialisation. Do note, we have a variety of species which can survive in any number of enviroments, and those which are so specialized that any change in their environment threatens their very existence (the latter of which are often used as early indicators of environmental change and/or the impact of humans on a given environment).

Not really contradicting just speculating an idea but it wouldnt work anyway. Active sites need those R-groups for molecule orientation & because glucose monomers are bonded by both their hydroxyl groups it would require multiple steps withing that reaction which wont successfully happen with random colisions.

...How does that address what I said there about you making a claim that by nature contradicted itself? Let me run that by you again: Your claim boiled down to "a beneficial mutation wouldn't necessarily be beneficial". By definition if something is beneficial its positive effects outweigh any negatives it may introduce, granting an overall advantage. If the negatives outweigh the positives, then it is not a beneficial trait to start with. Think of it as an equation, where solving the equation shows an organism's overall fitness. You start off with 5 in three equations. In the first equation we add 4 and subtract 3. (5 + (4-3) = 6) In this case the net effect is +1, and this represents our beneficial mutation. In the second equation we add 3 and subtract 6. (5 + (3-6) = 2). Our net effect here is -3, and that represents our detrimental mutation. Our third equation adds 2 and subtracts 2. (5 + (2-2) = 5) Here the net effect is 0, and is thus an example of a benign mutation. Of course, this is a very simplified explanation, but the gist is that you seemed to be under the impression that any negative negated the possibility of a trait being considered positive, which is far from the truth, and I hope I illustrated with the equations demonstrating the concept of net gain and net loss.

Evolution doesnt account for why ALL components co-operate with each other within all organisms. All species have a degree of adaptability due to inbuilt mechanisms that accompany the change. Specialisation is either due to a loss of some mechanisms (which must have slipped under the polymerases enzymes) or they die when taken from their environment suddenly rather than gradually. The former would be a dead end for evolution.

Mmm, not really. Make no mistake, sudden environmental change can wipe out species, but specialization hardly results in a dead end, namely because there is no obligation to continue a given trend and in fact it is quite possible to go in the opposite direction entirely. Case in point: By all indications whales and dolphins are descended from now-extinct land animals, which themselves were descended from aquatic animals. Or let's use Darwin's finches as an example. Environment changes in a way that favors small beaks: The population reflects this with beaks becoming smaller over the course of generations, simply due to the smaller-beaked finches having a survival advantage that lets them survive long enough to reproduce. Now let's change the environment to one where larger seeds (requiring larger, stronger beaks to eat) become prevalent and smaller seeds become scarce. Those birds with the largest beaks, capable of eating even some of those larger seeds suddenly have a survival advantage that their small-beaked counterparts lack (especially considering that they have less competition for those larger seeds than the small-beaks have for the small seeds), and thus over time the population reflects that, with beaks growing larger over generations. We've seen the effects of environmental change in action.

Yep. Sorry I thought I mentioned that earlier. I try to because somehow a rumour spread around suggesting that creationists dont believe in natural selection for some reason.

Eh, it's not a rumor so much as it is precidence. In my experience at least it's fairly common to see a creationist actively reject the idea. Though granted, those creationists who do so tend also to be the ones who present the dessert banana as 'proof' against it due to how well suited it is for human consumption (the greatest irony of that being that the dessert banana's evolutionary history is fairly well documented, and is a crowning example of the strength of selection pressures, in this case supplied by humans through horticulture). Glad to see you aren't one of those though

Ill check the video when I have time to kill. I dont know where you were going here but organs perform multiple functions & kind of need to actually work to do its job.

You assume that those traits needed to develop simultaneously, or that the organs you refer to couldn't be the result of a fusion of multiple existing traits. Take the eye, for instance. It's a collection of photoreceptors that still have function in any number of shapes and concentration. There's no reason that life would have to go immediately from 'no-eye' to 'human eye'. We would have trouble with say only a patch of photoreceptors, but a variety of creatures do in fact make use of just that.

Mutations arent directed as they dont affect the phenotype in anyway so nothing is going to gide its direction. Each transitional mutation needs something to decide which mutations to keep & which to discard which can only happen in the genotype, otherwise all organisms should be full of tissues, glands & organs that havent quite made it yet if at all.

That's what selection pressure does. The mutations themselves are unguided. Natural Selection, however, determines which get passed on. Mutation provides the variation, Natural Selection provides the guiding principle, culling unfavorable traits.

Hindsight bias? Please elaborate. And I can only assume a lack of preceeding traits if the traits arent present, but only assume.
Oh, and your crazy.

Well at its core, hindsight bias is basically the preconception that 'since things turned out this way that's the only way they could have turned out'. I say you used a form of it due to your claim of randomness and your insistence of natural selection being unable to direct that randomness seemed to heavily imply a "the fact that the world exists as it does now disproves both" train of thought. Could just be because I see that argument a lot though.

[/quote]Now you're just being unreasonable and making use of a fallacy known as argument from ignorance ("This statement is true because it cannot be 100% proven false"...though to your credit you aren't taking it to the "I'm right" extreme). Were I to draw a comparison to the argument, I think I'd have to go with the dismissal of a doctor saying that his patient's tests indicated he didn't have cancer, on the grounds that the doctor obviously didn't test every single cell in the patient's body for it.[/quote]

Actually Im perfectly reasonable & it was perfectly valid reasoning. This is why we make such discoveries because we investigate.

That much is true. What makes your bit unreasonable, however is that you're explicitly asking for scientists to prove a negative for you, to examine every single individual to completely rule out a possibility before you accept a given explanation even provisionally. Again, that's like telling a doctor to go back and test for cancer again because he didn't check every cell in your body.

Hardly ignorant, iv ignored nothing. Just because you disagree with a person who objects to your opinion doesnt make them ignorant.

You're right, disagreement doesn't mean the other person is ignorant, and I never claimed that it does. What I said is that ignorance tends to be the root cause of the overwhelming majority of objections to evolution. This includes irreducible complexity, which actively relies on ignorance to make its claims, which boil down to "We don't have an explanation yet, so assume a designer because there's no other explanation", with the only supporting arguments being personal incredulity. All that said, I do have to grant that you're easily several cuts above most creationists I've argued against.

Thanks again. Lets see how it goes this time.

Ok, let's try a different approach and go back to basics. The base code quote blocks in most forums tends to be [quote ] immediately before any text you want to quote and [ /quote] immediately after it (minus the spaces in the brackets, of course). To identify who the quote belonged to, you expand the opening code to include ="username" before the end bracket. Linking to the exact post number though...that requires a bit of code that I've yet to figure out the method behind, other than that the quote button shows it :/

 

[FC Groningen]

I see a lot of ground has been covered already and that both opponents and supporters of evolution start to repeat themselves. As a supporter of evolution however, I do wonder about 1 particular thing. Opponents rightfully claim that science can't prove evolution a full 100%, because nothing can't be proven a full 100%. There is a an astronomical chance that all our senses are playing mass tricks on us after all. However, I do wonder if opponents realise that this works both ways. Even if evolution would be "proven" false and their particular god will reveal him/herself on earth, his/her existence still can't be proven, because of the same reasons as above.

If people REALLY want to put evolution and the belief that god created mankind on the same level (note that I avoid the word "creationism" here), the least you can do is apply the same critical standard for both.

 

[Aurgelmir]

I am a Catholic, but I still know that evolution exists, and I agree that it is appalling that most people don't don't know about it. However, I do not think everyone should be forced to believe in evolution, if people don't want to, why make them? Intelligent design is still a possible theory, as is the theory of evolution, I think God guided evolution but, I'm not going to go around and try and make people teach this in schools everywhere.

No, people should be forced to believe in Evolution much like they should be forced to believe in Physics, Math and Chemistry.

Evolution is a part of Biology, and Biology is a Science. You can't go around picking and choosing what science you "believe in" it doesn't make it less true.

2+2 = 6 because that is my belief, Is not a valid argument.

Science allows for counter hypothesis to a theory, but also demands research to back up or falsify said hypothesis. Without said proof/falsification it will not be scientifically accepted.

PS: Would people PLEASE stop saying "It's just a Theory", and freaking learn what the word Scientific Theory means. *Sigh*

 

[Bradeck]

I am a Catholic, but I still know that evolution exists, and I agree that it is appalling that most people don't don't know about it. However, I do not think everyone should be forced to believe in evolution, if people don't want to, why make them? Intelligent design is still a possible theory, as is the theory of evolution, I think God guided evolution but, I'm not going to go around and try and make people teach this in schools everywhere.

No, people should be forced to believe in Evolution much like they should be forced to believe in Physics, Math and Chemistry.

Evolution is a part of Biology, and Biology is a Science. You can't go around picking and choosing what science you "believe in" it doesn't make it less true.

2+2 = 6 because that is my belief, Is not a valid argument.

Science allows for counter hypothesis to a theory, but also demands research to back up or falsify said hypothesis. Without said proof/falsification it will not be scientifically accepted.

PS: Would people PLEASE stop saying "It's just a Theory", and freaking learn what the word Scientific Theory means. *Sigh*

This. I really don't understand the reason as to why people apply double standards to science and atheism. If a scientist says evolution is real, then they're labeled as "attacking" people's faith. If an Atheist says they don't believe in god, they are assaulting the beliefs of others. However, no one ever discusses the baseless attacks on the other side.

 

[Xanadu84]

Simply put, Creationism would be pretty awesome for a Christian. Evolution doesn't dismiss god by any means (Particularly for Darwin himself), but its a lot easier to stick to a crazy theory then to come to terms with both facts and faith. So that's what people do. And for the average person, it doesn't really make any difference if they understand evolution or not. You may groan when Bob over there says that the earth is 6,000 years old but really, he is going to do your electrical work/plumbing/serve you food/manage your firm/raise his kids/pay his taxes/be a functional member of society just fine without ever having to have a working knowledge of Evolution. You really don't need to worry about some random person being a creationist until they are biologists. People in the field know this shit, and arn't looking to the average man on the street for help with there research any more then homeowners have a clogged toilet and take out the yellow pages, and flip past the plumber listings to the number of the nearest college. Educate more, and don't believe convenient lies absolutely, but the reason people don't believe in evolution is because honestly, there's no reason for them to.

 

[OldGus]

However, I do not think everyone should be forced to believe in evolution, if people don't want to, why make them?

Belief has no place in matters of science. If something can be demonstrated to be true, then you either accept it as truth, or you are a fool.

I think some problems stem from calling evolution a theory. To people who don't understand it, it gives the impression that there's still a good chance it could be wrong. While there are missing links here and there, evolution has a pretty sound case.

This. Holy everything this. I'd actually like to direct this at damn near everyone on this thread.

One, the two are not necessarily exclusive. The main question answered by one is a How question, while the other is a Who. As in, "How did this avalanche happen?" and "Who started this avalanche?".

Two, not believing in Creationism is not believing in evolution, its called being an atheist.

Three, to prevent further confusion, let me list some other scientific theories... gravity, relativity, magnetism, germ, expanding universe, big bang, heliocentric, etc.

Four, let me ask you this. Do you believe in Australia? Do you believe it is both a country and a continent? Do you believe kangaroos and koala live there? Do you believe it is very hot in the north of Australia? Do you believe a large chunk of central Australia is a desert? Do you believe it has currently an Old Man Government?
How about rain? Do you believe in rain? Do you believe that sometimes, when the weather is right, water falls from the sky? Do you believe that it is often cloudy when this happens? Do you also believe that open containers of water slowly empty just by the weather being hot and sunny and not rainy?
Do you believe in George Carlin? No, not that he was a good comedian. No, not that he was a person, that's still debatable. I mean, do you believe he was alive, and now he's not?
Do you believe in WW2? No, not whether it was good or bad, or whether the people who fought in that war were heroes. Do you believe it happened?
Do you believe that nearly half of Shakespeare's plays end in a huge bloodbath?
Do you believe in 2?

The answer to all of those is "of course not." They are facts. You don't believe or not believe them, you know or don't know them. They are not something that cannot be proven either true or false. It's not just that they are true, it's that they are.

Five. Creationism is philosophy/religion. You don't teach Poe in a geography class, you don't teach sine and cosine in an English class, and you don't teach biology in Spanish (This rule does not apply to Spanish speaking countries.) That being said, despite all the things said about fairness in teaching, good luck finding a high school religion or philosophy class that will fairly cover/present Judaism, much less all the others (this challenge does not apply to classes taught by religious leaders in the faith in question.)