The misinterpretation of evolution
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Okay, first of all, I know your post is two days old, but I've read most of the thread a bit late, so. I don't intend to flame or start an argument, I just found your post to be worthy of a reply (it reminded me of my way of thinking when I was younger and not a college student).michael87cn said:
Now that's out of the way, I'd like to say that evolution does not necessarily mean transformation from one life form into another or whatever people believe evolution means these days. I know Wikipedia is not the peak of human knowledge, but check out Wiki's definition of evolution. It's only one sentence: "Evolution (or more specifically biological or organic evolution) is the change over time in one or more inherited traits found in populations of individuals." (with this source: ^ a b c d Futuyma, Douglas J. (2005). Evolution. Sunderland, Massachusetts: Sinauer Associates, Inc.). Within recorded history, humans did not develop wings or morphed into astral beings (and probably never will), but we did evolve. First and foremost, our lifespan increased. Second, we grew to be taller on average. If there's this included in the definition ("Inherited traits are distinguishing characteristics, for example anatomical, biochemical or behavioural, that are passed on from one generation to the next." - the sentence right after the first one from Wiki), do I even need to go on on how our behaviour evolved during recorded history? And there's the simple things, not exclusive solely to recorded history; humans with darker skin? It's not for aesthetics, it serves a purpose and it evolved to protect humans from the dangerous sun rays. Black people can sunbathe without sunscreen while I'll get major skin burns if I do that.
We can also completely ignore the humans. There are other life forms that we can observe and see their evolution. Ever saw more than one dog breed? Evolution (artificial, selected evolution, but evolution). We breed them as we like it. How do you think we even got dogs in the first place? By selectively breeding wolves and taming them to become obedient and less aggressive to humans. Dogs did not just magically appear because we needed them; it was a live and long-lasting process of selectively taming and then breeding favourable traits, while affecting the behaviour of the animal as well. Actually, I think that dogs are probably the best example for this. Even better examples, though, are life forms with smaller lifespans. Humans are not really suitable for observing evolution because of our long lifespan and we can't really take humans to isolate them and let them live as live experiments. But even without that, anyone can see some of our evolved traits; the afore mentioned longer lifespan, height and, something I didn't mention before, our intelligence. No matter what people say about "new generations", humans are, on average, becoming more intelligent with every new generation. And not because of magical space dust or giant omnipotent man in the sun.
Still, I'm interested in what you would consider to be an "evolution of a human being". Do we need to get extra limbs, extra brains? Special powers? Lose something we don't need? Become evidently smarter, evidently prettier, stronger, better? I'm just interested in what people would approve of as being the evolution of the human kind.
Impossible miracle? Miracle, maybe, but impossible? No, obviously, because we are here with means to observe evolution. Still, neither you nor me are biologists that dedicated their lives to this subject, so neither of us can say "All those people that did dedicate their lives to this matter are WRONG and they missed something." Logics tell me that such complex matter cannot be explained in a few sentences or on an online encyclopaedia or that we actually have to witness something in person to know it happened. Can anyone really "witness" the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD and say that it really happened? No, not at all. But we have an enormous amount of evidence, such as historical records and, most importantly, cities buried in volcanic ash. We haven't seen it and we never will, but we have indisputable evidence of this event. Evolution, however, is not just ONE event; it's a process, lasting for millions of years, a process that still lasts and that will go on on working after humanity is long gone. We can't observe it as we could observe the eruption of a volcano. It's not an event set in time that you can just look at once and see "Ah yes, evolution just happened". And we most certainly don't have to go back in time to see our ancestors because we can already see them when we dig out their bones. What do you think anthropology and archaeology are for? And paleonthology, paleozoology (well, paleobiology in general) for that matter too. We don't need to see real dinosaurs walking around to know they existed, we have an indisputable amount of evidence for their existence (and their evolution), despite nobody saw them alive (or saw them evolving). I suppose there are still certain questions about evolution, but that does not mean evolution is not true; it just means that we have yet to develop a way to understand certain things about it. So far, evolution is very well documented and explained and can be taken for a fact, but still has minor thing that need to be attended. What else do people want? A video of a life form evolving? Well, that ain't happening (not any time soon, at least).michael87cn said:
And smashing two rocks together is not how live started. There needs to be a delicate balance of various factors for life to appear, that's why there was no life when Mars was created or when Mercury was created. It appeared only on Earth. Not because of smashing rocks, rocks smashed in the entire solar system. But the origin of life is not a part of studying evolution. That's abiogenesis.
Evolution does not "behave" "conveniently" for us. Evolution just is, whether we are here or not. Evolution was happening for hundreds of millions of years before humans appeared on Earth. And what do you mean by developing "from nothing more than small proteins and nutrients into a 6ft tall mass of flesh in a matter of 20 years"? As in, in 20 years, a human goes from being an egg and a single sperm to being a fully developed human being? What's that have to do with evolution? Evolution is a process that needs thousands, millions of years, depending on what's happening; to go from a simple life form to a human being, yes, it needs millions of years. To make humans taller or smarter? A few thousands.michael87cn said:
Now, I don't know how to make this sound any prettier, but you need to get to know a thing or two about the world. Telling someone "You need education" may sound like mocking, but I find it to be a delightful truth for all humans on this planet, and something you apparently agree on; humans don't know everything and it is doubtful that we ever will. However, the more we know, the stronger we are and the better we are. Yes, some people will use it for evil deeds, just as some people use ignorance for evil deeds. Should we stop exploring the world around us because of that? No. Ignorance is not a bliss. Ignorance is the darkness where the abilities of a human being, evolved after thousands, millions of years, are left unexplored and unused. It is through knowledge that we realized that our actions are hurting Earth's ecosystem and our fellow humans and it is through ignorance that we've killed and destroyed million, possibly billions of lives. Was it science and knowledge that killed people in the Crusades, or burned "witches" or created the Holocaust? No, it was ignorance.
I agree that we don't know everything and all scientists agree too. It is a sign of a simple mind when someone believes there's nothing left to learn, and people knew that since the dawn of time. I'll give you a quote from Seneca, which was printed at the beginning of one of my Physics textbooks for high school:
Wise men and women have known, since recorded history (and probably before that too), that no man will ever know all that is. However, we currently live in time where we have the biggest amount of knowledge at our disposal, more than ever in history. What is even more important, never before in history have more men and women been able to freely get all that knowledge for themselves. Never before were there so many schools and so many opportunities to learn. Never before was there Internet, a place where anyone can reach any type of knowledge in a matter of seconds (it's not the best way to learn, but it's a very good start, especially if it has a lot of sources. So Wikipedia is not always something to be entirely dismissed). Yes, we don't know everything. But we have more knowledge and more possibilities for learning now than ever before in the history of mankind.
People really need to stop looking at science as if it is a horrible monster. And I tell you this because I was once in your position. Only now do I realise that I was far too young and lacking in far too much knowledge. As soon as I opened my mind and started exploring the world around me, I realised that science is not a monster to be feared; ignorance is. Indifference is. Simple-mindedness is. Refusing to broaden your horizons, refusing to stand up and just TAKE all the possibilities you have to learn is.
You can make an educated guess that all questions you currently have about evolution have already been answered by scientists, after many decades of research, observation, testing, accumulating and documenting of huge amounts of data and knowledge. If you have questions about evolution that you can't find answers for, then you might just be a revolutionary thinker who thought of something before everyone else and I'd urge you to go and study the subject, especially if you have a major interest in it. Maybe you'll stumble upon your answer along the way and maybe you end being the one who discovers it. The cure for almost any problem is education, but only if you let yourself use it.
Note: I may be wrong about some things, but hey, it's nothing that some good old education can't fix.
Maybe you think valid means something different from what I think it means. You refuse to admit that believing assertion A rather than assertion B means you think A is more valid. Instead you say that you just prefer A. I do not see a difference between valid and preferable. I think you are arguing semantics. Which of your examples about Washington and Napoleon do you prefer, then?kouriichi said:
Your examples are about real people who existed in the real living world. We know that neither heavy metal nor sandwiches had been invented in Washington's time, and have no evidence that he ever visited China. We also know that spandex had not been invented in Napoleon's time and have no evidence that he ever visited Canada. On the other hand, it is quite likely that he did eat liverwurst at some point in his life, it being a common foodstuff in many of the areas he lived in during his life.
So you can see how assertions about real people and things who exist(ed) in the real living world can be analysed as to their validity.
Here are some other examples:
"God wants everyone to do as he commands."
"Exactly 144,000 people will go to Heaven."
"Numbers hold the key to the absolute."
"An unknowable intelligence was involved in the creation of the universe."
These assertions are metaphysical. They say nothing about the real living world that we can see and smell and feel. It's not that they are unproven, fantastical or unlikely, it's that they are unknowable, which is another word for meaningless. We have no mechanism by which we can judge their validity. Or their preferability, whatever you choose to call it.
We can say what we would like to be true, but then we are simply making a wish. That it would be desirable for something to be true is not sufficient reason to believe it is true.
"Do you know how many wild metaphysical guesses mankind has made over the centuries, in the various cultures he has created? Neither do I, but I know this, it's an utterly ridiculous number."
It seems like I couldn't resist the ancient call of an Internet argument! Even my captcha is telling me to run. It says "ran Hontions". I don't know who or what these Hontions are, but they obviously ran. Maybe I should toooktalist said:NOOOO! Get out while you still can! Save yourself!Beliyal said:
I've been stuck here for three days. Help me.
I read somewhere that as much as 40% of schools in the States were teaching Creationism as fact and either 'debunking' or simply ignoring evolution. I think that's your problem, right there.
That said, I can neither remember where nor when I read this, so take it with a grain of salt until someone else remembers the same article and provides something tangible, like a link.
That said, I can neither remember where nor when I read this, so take it with a grain of salt until someone else remembers the same article and provides something tangible, like a link.
That'd be the Gallup Polls.ExileNZ said:
Though honestly, I get the distinct impression that a lot of the misconceptions are largely attributable to the media, given the sheer number of times I hear creationists talk about 'THE Missing Link' (which is a concept almost entirely generated by the news media. Science has a concept of missing links, which is nothing more than any undiscovered fossil, but no singularly important example) and the overwhelming misunderstanding of 'mutation' to mean either something found in comic books ("Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, granting him superpowers and turning him into the AMAZING SPIDER MAN!") or being otherwise incredibly noticeable (being born with two heads for instance, which also gained popularity through hollywood)
Counterpoint: "If your cousins grandparents are your grandparents, then why aren't they your siblings instead of your cousins?"Vindictus said:
Alternate Counterpoint: "If Americans came from Europeans then why are there still Europeans?"
There are two main flaws with the 'why are still monkeys' argument, the first being the assumption that evolution is a linear trend. It is not, it's divergent. Honestly, it's a bit surprising that people can even make this mistake considering that even the very concept of the tree of life shows species branching off from a common source rather than being a singular road. Separate a population into different environments, they evolve along different lines based on the pressures of those environments and the mutations that occur in each isolated population. The end result is that where there was one species there now are two (or more). This ties into the other major flaw in the objection, namely the assumption that we're descended from modern apes. Evolution does not claim this, but posits that modern apes and humans share a common ancestor (hence the cousin analogy above).
Now amusingly, the old "why are there still monkeys" bit is so worn out and so well known as being based on false premises that even groups like Answers in Genesis recognize its failings and list it among the arguments they beg other creationists not to use.
Checkmate? You haven't even set up the chessboard yet.
I hadn't really looked at it that way, but you're probably correct. I'm sure it's not the whole explanation, but it's probably a big part of it.Tin Man said:
Yeah, you gotta love that
Also, I think your misspelling of 'terrified' as 'terrorfied' is awesome and should be given it's own definition, because that is just a fun-looking word
I wonder if they teach alternatives to germ theory in schools where they teach alternatives to Evolution? Or alternatives to gravity?
I believe that all falling is caused by an intelligent agency, and we can't cure aids because the scientific community refuses to allow us to research the Demon Possession Theory of disease. AIDs is obviously caused by demons.
I believe that all falling is caused by an intelligent agency, and we can't cure aids because the scientific community refuses to allow us to research the Demon Possession Theory of disease. AIDs is obviously caused by demons.
If it is "impossible" for change to happen over the course of millions of years, the why has the fish Coelacanth been living with very little change since it's fossil ancestors during te Paleozoic Era, which btw was about 350 million years ago?sergnb said:
I'm sorry marfin, what's your point here? Did you leave a word out or something? "If it's impossible for change to happen over millions of years then why has this fish been the same for so long?" Is that what you intended to say? Because that's what your post says. Did you mean to ask why it hasn't changed? Please clarify.marfin_ said:
You do realize that Coelacanth is an Order on the classification system, right? (In order of increasing similarity the classification system for organisms goes Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species). It's called a living fossil because the entire order was thought to have been extinct 80 million years ago. It's worth noting however that specific species of Coelacanth discovered alive (Latimeria menadoensis) does not have a known fossil record, so it's not accurate to say it's 'unchanged'.marfin_ said:
Additionally, it's worth noting that there's nothing in evolution that requires a descendent to be significantly different than its ancestors. While it is very often the case that the descendent is noticeably different, as shown by the fossil record as a whole, a static environment can mean that a well-adapted population may show relatively little change over time as there's little pressure favoring new traits.
Because yours is the most reasonable response ill reply to yours.
Basically all are observed with limitations to 5 & 8. Species vary as dominant & recessive genes are shuffled about during the generations. A simple punnet square demonstrates this perfectly. However, the assumption that mutations create new complex traits (not including the traits forming out of degeration)& change families & rather than just species.
The reason I call evolution superficial is that its based on external traits, especially from fossils despite their obscure details. This is fair enough to base a hypothesis from but when more evidence is revealled to conflict with the theory the theory must adapt or die. Sadly the hubris of many wont accept that we cant truly know & instead promote their theories as a fact & ommit details in the evidence that conflict with the theory. Abiogenesis is one of the oldest examples of these.
Personally Im a Creationist out of convenience & this is plausible since you cant truly prove anything from the past. Its out of the evidence that I use to reveal flaws to the theory of evolution, which evolutionists themselves should be screening for. This is how science perfects itself, through self critisicm.
Basically all are observed with limitations to 5 & 8. Species vary as dominant & recessive genes are shuffled about during the generations. A simple punnet square demonstrates this perfectly. However, the assumption that mutations create new complex traits (not including the traits forming out of degeration)& change families & rather than just species.
The reason I call evolution superficial is that its based on external traits, especially from fossils despite their obscure details. This is fair enough to base a hypothesis from but when more evidence is revealled to conflict with the theory the theory must adapt or die. Sadly the hubris of many wont accept that we cant truly know & instead promote their theories as a fact & ommit details in the evidence that conflict with the theory. Abiogenesis is one of the oldest examples of these.
Personally Im a Creationist out of convenience & this is plausible since you cant truly prove anything from the past. Its out of the evidence that I use to reveal flaws to the theory of evolution, which evolutionists themselves should be screening for. This is how science perfects itself, through self critisicm.