Crackpot Challenge Part 2 - Evolution

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No, you’ve got it backwards. The effect is things falling to the floor, or planets orbiting stars. The theory is that the force of gravity attracts them. Effects don’t need proofs, but theories need confirmation.
There is a chain of effects here. Gravity has been proposed e.g. as an effect of a distortion of the electric field of subatomic particles (and other things). In other words, the cause of gravity is X or Y.

A theory that only describes the effect is not a theory, it is only a description of an effect.

Certainly it is not backwards as you state above. Or do you believe that the balls falling to the floor actually cause gravity?
 
I am misleading people? I’m quoting the Pope.
You present that in a way that makes it seem that it’s something different than what scientists have said for a long time. The inference is that scientists claim that evolution is a complete and proven theory. Maybe you could say that the Pope agrees with scientists that the theory of evolution is not complete or proven, but it likely is the way the diversity of life on Earth came to be. That would be more accurate and much more honest.
“taught better” What have I been taught? That the Biology textbook exceeds God’s word? That a court of law can give evidence proving something beyond a reasonable doubt but science cannot?
There have been many attempts here to teach you that scientists do not consider the theory of evolution to be complete or proven. You continue to reject that teaching.
When I dealt with electronic circuits and components, everything worked or it didn’t. I had all the proof I needed. I can prove gravity all I want, but evolution? No.
There have been many attempts to educate you about evolution and gravity. The fact is that we have a lot better understanding of evolution than we have about gravity. You continue to reject those attempts to teach you this fact.
best explanation" for what? An experiment conducted on fruit flies only proved that existing genetic material could be moved around but nothing new resulted.
Evolution theory explains a whole lot more than fruit fly experiments and I am sure that you know that.
If I was a rocket scientist working for NASA, I had better prove that I can get a rocket up in space or I’m out of a job. Quit offering the evolution is a fact but we can’t prove it argument. I hope you can see how unconvincing that sounds.
Evolution is a fact and it is explained best by using the theory of evolution as explained by Charles Darwin and modified through the years as we gained more information and evidence.
 
There have been many attempts here to teach you that scientists do not consider the theory of evolution to be complete or proven. You continue to reject that teaching.

**Evolution is a fact **and it is explained best by using the theory of evolution as explained by Charles Darwin and modified through the years as we gained more information and evidence.
So what you’re saying is that evolution is an incomplete and unproven fact?

You absolutely positively know that it is true (a fact), but there is no way to prove it.

OK. We all have faith in something.

Disclaimer:
[The above argument was done by trained evolution professionals under controlled conditions. Don’t try this argument at home.] 😛
 
There is no theory explaining why gravity does what it does. Gravity is an effect. The proof of the effect is easily seen by dropping balls on the floor. You can say - “If I let go of this ball, I predict that it will fall to the floor and hit the floor with speed X.” The experiment can actually be run multiple times to verify the accuracy of the prediction.

Tell me about an experiment you can run which proves that complex life developed from simple life over a 4 billion year period. (Hint: the best you can actually do is merely to speculate).

Now, personally, I think it is quite possible that simple life (with divine help at some points along the way) could have mutated its way to complex life over 4 billion years. But where I differ from the hard core evolutionists is that I know that it’s also possible that things didn’t happen that way (with or without divine help). So although I prefer the mechanism I just mentioned, I am open to other alternatives as well.

On the other hand, “they” say all the time that one must be an idiot for not accepting the fact of evolution, and then in the next breath say that no theory is ever proven. Except that they also say that Ida or the latest missing link actually does prove evolution - it’s the 8th wonder of the world.

Why is it that they insist on our compliance with their personal beliefs. There are no evolution questions on the test for driving a car, or an evolution quiz before you can buy groceries. Whether or not you believe their views of evolution has no effect on anyone’s daily secular life. Why does it bug them so much when people refuse to comply?
You are right. No effect on daily life, but it must be believed. Right now!

Here’s why:

You and apes had a common ancestor. You are just another animal. You are accountable to no ‘invisible man in the sky.’

Atheists have put ‘Man Created God’ signs on buses. Now why would they do that? To tell you that you are accountable to nothing!

The irritation comes from those called atheists, brights, free thinkers, secular humanists, radicals and anarchists.

Science is god. It will lead you and save your life. It will tell you the truth and give you hope. But the punch line is: It’s run by corruptible men who believe God does not see what we do because we’ve decided he doesn’t exist. We are god!

A Warning: When the Atheist Technocracy is set up, if you are not part of a certain chosen elite, your best interests will not be kept in mind.

Why was Jesus Christ born? To be a sacrifice because through one man sin entered the world.

Peace,
Ed
 
No, you’ve got it backwards. The effect is things falling to the floor, or planets orbiting stars. The theory is that the force of gravity attracts them. Effects don’t need proofs, but theories need confirmation.
Gravity is not a theory, anyone can prove it. The effects are observable and are relevant to anyone who drives a car or tries to hit a basket in basketball.

Peace,
Ed
 
So what you’re saying is that evolution is an incomplete and unproven fact?

You absolutely positively know that it is true (a fact), but there is no way to prove it.

OK. We all have faith in something.

Disclaimer:
[The above argument was done by trained evolution professionals under controlled conditions. Don’t try this argument at home.] 😛
A fact doesn’t need to be absolutely positively true. Science doesn’t ever claim such a thing.

It’s a fact because it has been observed. The theory that explains the observation is what Darwin proposed. That is almost certainly how evolution happens. The fact that scientists have evidence for evolution happening is beyond refute at this point, but it isn’t absolutely positively true. Nothing in science ever is.

Now religion is way different. Some ideas are held to be absolutely positively true, like the deity of Christ. There is no evidence that that is absolutely positively true, but lots of people believe it. That works in religion because faith is more important than evidence.

In science that’s not good enough.
 
A fact doesn’t need to be absolutely positively true. Science doesn’t ever claim such a thing.

It’s a fact because it has been observed. The theory that explains the observation is what Darwin proposed. That is almost certainly how evolution happens. The fact that scientists have evidence for evolution happening is beyond refute at this point, but it isn’t absolutely positively true. Nothing in science ever is.

Now religion is way different. Some ideas are held to be absolutely positively true, like the deity of Christ. There is no evidence that that is absolutely positively true, but lots of people believe it. That works in religion because faith is more important than evidence.

In science that’s not good enough.
Sad that you, and others, misreprent the Catholic faith like this. We have evidence, you don’t.

Run down and scientifically examine the tilma, or cloak, of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Secretary of State Clinton saw it a little while ago and asked who painted it. The Church has declared it was not painted by human hands.

Peace,
Ed
 
Gravity is not a theory, anyone can prove it. The effects are observable and are relevant to anyone who drives a car or tries to hit a basket in basketball.
Peace,Ed
Yes, gravity is a theory to explain why things fall down. Evolution is a theory to explain biological diversity. Plate tectonics is a theory to explain earthquakes and volcanoes.
 
Sad that you, and others, misreprent the Catholic faith like this. We have evidence, you don’t.

Run down and scientifically examine the tilma, or cloak, of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Secretary of State Clinton saw it a little while ago and asked who painted it. The Church has declared it was not painted by human hands.

Peace,
Ed
So then, what the Church says is evidence? That’s an argument from authority and therefore not logically valid. It is however valid within the construct of faith and I accept that.
 
So then, what the Church says is evidence? That’s an argument from authority and therefore not logically valid. It is however valid within the construct of faith and I accept that.
Once again, a statement that involves a distortion. A physical miraculous artifact exists. You don’t want to examine it? Fine.

Peace,
Ed
 
A fact doesn’t need to be absolutely positively true.
Funny, my dictionary says “Fact: A concept whose truth can be proved.”
It’s a fact because it has been observed.
Evolution claims that simple life mutated into (eventually) mankind.

Don’t tell me that this has been observed.

And no, a mind experiment extrapolating a series of simple mutations over “as much time as necessary” doesn’t cut it either.
The theory that explains the observation is what Darwin proposed. That is almost certainly how evolution happens. The fact that scientists have evidence for evolution happening is beyond refute at this point, but it isn’t absolutely positively true. Nothing in science ever is.
“Almost certainly.” That’s a matter of opinion.

Of course there is evidence for evolution. A couple of hundred years ago there was “evidence” for phlogiston. A couple thousand years ago there was scientific evidence of the heavenly spheres. So what? They were wrong. Maybe you are wrong too.
Now religion is way different. Some ideas are held to be absolutely positively true, like the deity of Christ. There is no evidence that that is absolutely positively true, but lots of people believe it. That works in religion because faith is more important than evidence.
There were eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus. They saw him before, and after. Ditto the transfiguration. And the multiplication of loaves. And to the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

That’s actually a better track record than evolution. There are no eyewitnesses to simple to complex life.
 
A fact doesn’t need to be absolutely positively true. Science doesn’t ever claim such a thing.
Namesake, I beg to differ with you. “Fact” comes from the Latin “factus” – something done or completed. I take it that if something is completed it’s true. For example, an apple falls to the ground from a tree – that is a fact, so it’s true. Of course, if I am hallucinating and other people see the apple still hanging from a tree when I claim it fell, then the judgment is that I am imply mistaken. There are no false facts, only true ones.

That being said, the facts of apples falling and planets falling around stars are most coherently explained by Newton’s theory of gravity, continually modified by later scientists. The fact of genetic relationship is most coherently explained by natural selection and descent with modification.

StAnastasia
 
That being said, the facts of apples falling and planets falling around stars are most coherently explained by Newton’s theory of gravity, continually modified by later scientists. The fact of genetic relationship is most coherently explained by natural selection and descent with modification.

StAnastasia
Note to all:

We seem to talk a lot about gravity here. And the motion of the planets. Here is an interesting article about what we don’t know about those things. And here is another.

Fortunately, we know everything about evolution, which explains everything. 😉
 
The Church has been critical of heliocentrism as well.
No comparison. Science has been embraced by those who want or need a reason not to believe. The Church views science as complementary but is critical of evolution. Because of the current mass marketing of the new atheism, I find the Church to be the only reliable voice. As Cardinal Schoenborn wrote in Finding Design in Nature, the Church now finds itself in the position of defending reason itself.

Peace,
Ed
 
Evolution examined by the logic of philosophy
Species has no general definition – known in the biology world as the ‘species problem’
There is no general agreement on what a species is,
nor how any single definition can apply to all living things,
nor what the first species was,
nor what will be the next new species,
nor what humans will evolve to (the prediction problem)……
E.g., placing a type of Pacific salmon on the Endangered Species List took 10 years to resolve in court, because no one agreed on the definition of species…. That’s right, t………e……….n…y………e………a………r…….s.

This is a logical problem, indeed, since it’s not rational to measure species change if there’s no agreement on what a species is!

Until these inconsistencies are resolved, evolution must be ignored as a logical system to the truth.

**Evolution premises: **
The number of species increases with time since the first species began, except when catastrophes cause mass extinctions.
The last mass extinction was 65 million years ago - the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event.
Since then the number of species has been increasing.

Experimental tests:
The number of species is decreasing, since
  • There are no new species observed (assuming there is a solution to the species problem)
  • Existing species become endangered, then extinct.
E.g.,
“Those who do the science estimate that species extinctions are occurring within the range of 17,000 species per year – Edward Wilson’s mathematically-derived 1988 estimate – to Jared Diamond’s mind-boggling 1992 estimate of an annual loss of 150,000 species.” Ref: educ.utas.edu.au
Why an estimate? The species problem again ……
If evolution theory predicts increasing numbers, and tests show decreasing numbers, then this is a(nother) contradiction

Evolution examined by the rules of evidence in science:
Recall that natural science require falsifiability, repeatability, and application of the scientific method.

Claim: Radiometric dating of layers surrounding fossils supports ages of millions of years.
Response: Lava from the eruption of Mt. St. Helens less than 30 years ago indicated ages up to 2.8 million years; that is, 2,800,000 years old. static.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Excess-Argon-New-Lava-Dome-at-Mount-St-Helens.pdf

The radiometric method of dating inorganic elements contradicts the historically known age by up to 2,799,970 years. This dating method is discredited as a tool to determine true sample ages.

Claim: The geological ages cover millions of years.
Response. There is no valid chronometer for events in pre-history – i.e., more than 5500 years old. This claim is untestable and violates the falsifiable rule for scientific evidence.

Claim: All species today are descended from the first species.
Response: This descendancy cannot be repeated for any of the species in the sequence from first to present species.
This claim violates the repeatability rule for scientific evidence.

Claim: This evolution of species continues at the present and into the future.
Response: No species changes are now being seen.
This claim violates the scientific method, which requires confirming evidence by experimentation, not speculation.
Saying that evolution is too slow to be seen will require that we wait for future confirmation. Meanwhile the need for testing is unsatisfied in the present.

We have used the rules of evidence in theology, philosophy and science itself to refute the claims of heliocentrism and evolution.
According to the original challenge, the crackpot awards are presented to Copernicus and Darwin.

The Lord is risen indeed – Alleluia!
 
No comparison. Science has been embraced by those who want or need a reason not to believe. The Church views science as complementary but is critical of evolution. Because of the current mass marketing of the new atheism, I find the Church to be the only reliable voice. As Cardinal Schoenborn wrote in Finding Design in Nature, the Church now finds itself in the position of defending reason itself. Peace,Ed
Yes comparison! Just ask Galileo…
 
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