From some older posts – since I wasn’t around to participate. This begins shortly aftrer #810:
and so it goes.
all i wanted is some honest answers to the article i found, but i never got them.
what did i get instead?
"science" being a "pop sci" rag, you know, not really important.
me being called a creationist, paranoid, delusional.
even one poster said "what does it matter if we don't have any transitional fossils".
That was my remark. Was Darwin aware of any "transitional fossils" when he posited
Origin of the Species? I don't think so. So what difference does it make? His challenge was to explain the discoveries he made about the surprising creatures he found at Galapagos. What other explanation is there? None.
I am arguing this point only because I don't see where you've laid the factual predicate for the need to produce "transitional" fossils, nor have you even defined what that means. In the past we have covered reptiles that flew, fish that "walked" (and still do), and the origins of cetaceans from primordial ungulates, among other things. So it’s not even clear why you feel there are inadequate “transitional” fossils. Furthermore, if more “transitional” forms had been found, it would seem to indicate that something is wrong, since the expectation for a “transition” (probability theory) is extremely low. (Depending on how you finally define “transitional”.)
But this is just at the "zoo animal" level of analysis of the question of "what is transitional". What about long history of cyanobacteria (for hundreds of millions of years as the predominant species, before the Cambrian explosion). What about the late emergence of sexually reproducing forms after hundreds of millions of years of these asexual forms? What about the late emergence of multicelled colonial forms, which led to true metazoans? So far all of your concerns seems rooted in what happened very late in the history of evolution . . . which is where Darwin shows up, noting the speciation that happened in just about the last several million years or so, in one isolated dot on the map, among a few otherwise unremarkable creatures – principally a genera of bird, and two reptiles, but he noted evolution in the vegetation also. Just as Darwin's generalization about all life stems from these very few examples, only a few transitional fossile are more than enough to lead to the current theory. There simply is no other realistic explanation.
There is no escaping the fact of what Darwin observed. The evidence is still there (what's left of it -- but all of it it was there long enough to be confirmed.) What does “transitional” fossils have to do with Galapagos? The theory begins as the explanation of living life forms, not extinct ones. So while the sediments of countless cataclysms laid a vast record of the remarkable results of finer grained changes not often preserved, it’s not laid down to the expectation of human skeptics, but merely as matter of chance. In fact it’s surprising how rich the fossil record is. But why do you insist that it’s essential to the theory that never depended on it in the first place? Go back to the actual facts about what Darwin observed and what he and his colleagues concluded about the evidence. That’s your smoking gun.
yeah, i can see why no scientist would EVER attempt to dissent against evolution, EVEN IF THEY HAD THE GOODS.
It’s not a question of dissent, it’s a question of evidence. Anyone who completed just a little education in biology would realize that. There simply is no other explanation for what happened, and is happening, that the theory Darwin proposed—as amended by better information since then.
A scientist who denies first principles of science without any evidence is operating out of some non-scientific basis (like religion or just gut emotion) in contradiction to the title "scientist". That’s not dissent. It’s just a case of serious technical error. Don’t confuse being egregiously mistaken with expressing dissent. That’s the common issue here (in this thread and similar threads) by posters who carry a chip on their shoulder about the adequacy of formal education. They are just criticizing a system they never bothered to explore themselves. That’s pretty lame.
a clear cut lesson easily taught and learned by others.
evolution has little more than "fear of reprisal" to stand on.
It has the story of Galapagos to stand on. No other realistic theory exists to explain Galapagos than the one Darwin proposed. You have this all backwards. You should begin with the evidence, as Darwin did, and work your way forward from there. This reluctance to offer evidence is what makes the anti-evolutionists so irrelevant.
remembering facts are immutable:
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110127141657.htm
you couldn't pay me enough to NOT teach a "fact" i knew to be true.
It’s not clear what your point is about the issue with teachers. When I went for a teaching certificate, I was surprised by the very high number of Christian fundamentalists in the program. There were very few who took more than the minimum of math a science, and I’m quite certain most of them took a dim view of evolution. They were from all disciplines, so they bonded through a prayer circle and I observed them over a period of a couple of years. When I went out to do my practical experience, I found an alarming number of them in the schools. It was very disheartening.
No wonder then, that when the teachers were recently surveyed, an alarmingly high number gave the age of the Earth as 6,000 years, and a majority believed that if evolution is true, the God is controlling it. You can’t varnish over this. It’s a well documented phenomenon. People are simply reacting according to what their religions teach. The true scientists (the atheists) understand the problem, they all encounter it to some degree as I did, but there is nothing we can do about it.
It makes no sense to me why you oppose the theory proposed by the observer at Galapagos, when you know there is no alternative explanation, and when you know that the origin of the anti-science argument is rooted in Christian fundamentalism.
Chemist and five time Nobel nominee, Henry "Fritz" Schaefer of the University of Georgia, commented on the need to encourage debate on Darwin's theory of evolution. "Some defenders of Darwinism," says Schaefer, "embrace standards of evidence for evolution that as scientists they would never accept in other circumstances." Schaefer was on the roster of signers of the statement, termed "A Scientific Dissent on Darwinism."
That’s fine, but tell us how the Galapagos finches (Darwin’s Finches) came to be, as well as the other oddities of Galapagos. Where’s the evidence to contradict Darwin? Nowhere.
The numbers of scientists who question Darwinism is a minority, but it is growing fast," said Stephen Meyer, a Cambridge-educated philosopher of science who directs the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture at Discovery Institute. "This is happening in the face of fierce attempts to intimidate and suppress legitimate dissent. Young scientists are threatened with deprivation of tenure. Others have seen a consistent pattern of answering scientific arguments with ad hominem attacks. In particular, the series' attempt to stigmatize all critics--including scientists--as religious 'creationists' is an excellent example of viewpoint discrimination."
http://www.reviewevolution.com/press...Scientists.php
You just quoted a religious fundamentalist source. You say you’re not arguing from the religious position, so why quote them if you’re not supporting their agenda? That makes no sense to me.
yazata said:
Evolution in the sense of 'biological speciation explained by natural selection' does seem to be increasingly probable in my opinion. (I believe that it's true.) It's clearly supported by a massive body of evidence. (Though not without a great deal of thinking and inference in most cases.) But it clearly isn't a religious-style infallible and inerrant doctrine. Science isn't revelation.
That is the reason there is no faith or belief in science. Scientism is an oxymoron. That's why belief and science are two diametrically opposed paradigms for looking at the world, but one is valid, the other is not.
You don't think that evolutionary biologists believe that evolutionary biology is true? You obviously believe that it is. I'm not criticising that belief, I share it. I'm just pointing out that it's a belief.
It’s not properly called a belief, nor is it accurate to conflate it with religion. It’s knowledge. The thousand of facts (or so) that Darwin meticulously documented constitute knowledge. We are bound by this knowledge (based in facts) justifiably, whereas the folks bound by their superstitious beliefs do not have any comparable justification. In the pursuit of truth, there has to be a pursuit of justification. Otherwise there is tendency to cave in to the purveyors of pseudoscience and it counterpart, the anti-science arguments like leopold is raising. How else does anyone ever tell an obvious lie from an obvious truth? (The Darwin's finches are obviously true, as are the marine iguanas and the long and short necked turtles. So is the age of the archipelago and the thousand of other related facts Darwin tied together).
leopold said:
science should be the last word in regards to the truth. period.
this is the major reason i bitch so much about this.
people hold evolution up on a silver platter like it's some kind of "etched in stone" thing, and it isn't.
It’s the other way around. Religious propagandists are chronically singling out Evolution and attacking it in particular because it conflicts with their superstitious beliefs. They don’t attack any of the many less well proven theories of math or science. The reaction, to put them in their place, is not equivalent to holding the TOE up on a silver platter. It’s equivalent to excusing them from the dinner table for being obnoxious. Why you attack the science instead of the agitators is unclear—given that you insist you are not religiously motivated. There is some huge gaping hole in your world view that would allow you to proceed like this. What is it? No wonder so many people accuse you of being a fundie. So far it seems to me like you are doing this covertly – arguing fundamentalism while denying affiliation with them. What other possible explanation is there?
leopold said:
label the following as "creationist" and shitcan it without following up on ANY of it paddoboy:
http://www.astorehouseofknowledge.info/w/Suppression_of_dissent_against_evolution
As Grumpy noted, you again cited a fundie source. What’s up with that?
Yazata said:
Of course it's simplified, we are all laymen and this is Sciforums.
Yes but Galapagos is not that complicated. In fact it’s pretty much common sense. How did the creatures get there (the islands popped up only recently) and why are they so different than their ancestors? For the level of this discussion (a covert religious attack on science) that’s pretty simple. But it’s also an essential fact.
