How do you know that, is it because I disagree with you?
It’s because that’s part of what “theory” in science means. It’s not fact, it’s a model that accounts for fact. “The theory of evolution” is not the raw idea that the descendants of one species of life become over time and many generations another species, it’s a specific model of how that happens, at this point through mutation and genetic drift, controlled by natural selection, and punctuated by mass extinctions.
There is no way to prove a theory true, and so theories (including that one) are always held provisionally and tentatively.
The facts underlying the theory of evolution lie in the observation of the fossil record, which indicates that the species mix on earth has changed radically over time. This fact is completely incompatible with a one-time creation (although not with an ongoing creation that keeps occurring). The best and simplest explanation for it is some kind of evolution. Darwin’s theory, as modified by knowledge acquired since his death, is “the theory of evolution,” i.e. a model of how evolution takes place. But evolution itself is an extremely well-established hypothesis, not itself a fact, and Darwin’s theory is a step or two removed from that hypothesis. It could be that evolution happens in some other way. It could also be that evolution doesn’t happen, but we have an ongoing creative process of some unexplained kind. Either of those would overturn Darwin’s theory without violating facts that are known today. But that the life inhabiting the earth has changed over time – that’s fact.
Tristan:
Cant remember the specifics and some of it was over my head so I cant articulate on the exact problem that recent biologist and gnome experts have found but it had something to do with protein synthesis and Cellular wall construction and how this didn’t fit into the “global stress” response.
But all science aside there is many logistical problems as well as logical errors that many can see and some coincide with this.
For instance, how could the first life form with a nearly blank DNA have the genetic information necessary to mutate to all the possible changing conditions of the environment, how could it know the possibilities without a template of some sort? Why does all life seem to be so faceted and connect together for what we can see as purpose? How can any of this work with out a set of rules or guidelines and how can these rules or guidelines work with life that it knows nothing about? Far too much circumstantial evidence points to some design or template that is in direct opposition to “origin of speciesâ€.
Next is the original problem of huge gaps in the fossil records that the entire theory stands on, not one single species can be traced through a transition from one distinct species to another, all have huge gaps. Also there are many other problems with the ideas of Purpose that the majority believes and the illogical idea that we could or would have evolved with this sense of Purpose that cannot be traced to survival. In fact many human characteristics are completely against survival in modern times since we have the ability through this intelligence and awareness of life to overrule nature and allow week genes to continue on in the reproductive cycle.
The brights call themselves brights, and the humanists call themselves humanists.
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Cite the paper, I’d be curious. But oftentimes processes in biology can seem counter-intuative.
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A couple of different ways, the RNA world hypothesis provides a nice bridge whereby the robustness needed for cellular life can occur. Speaking of which ‘blank DNA’ is a misnomer. It is more about an ur-organism with a very small genome, slowly branching out due to either genomic doubling (a fairly common occurance) or viruses.
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Your use of the word ‘know’ seems to imply a lack of understanding regarding evolution. Mutations happen. Always. Selection is the sieve whereby ‘good’ mutations are favoured and ‘bad’ mutations are removed. You seem to be very seriously anthropomorphizing the organisms.
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Look at HIV. It can quickly change itself in a variety of ways that make anti-HIV drug manufacture an absolutely nightmare. Yet, it manages to do this all through random selection. Despite this, there seems to almost be a ‘plan’ to HIV’s activity. You get the initial, acute HIV that weakens the immune system just enough to let the virus escape . . . and then the virus slowly, slowly goes to work over a long period of time. After a while, the virus will take up residence in the brain. Then, a critical mass is reached and AIDS occurs. It almost seems intelligent, like it is planned – but in the case of HIV, we know it isn’t. We can demonstrate it isn’t. It is random processes having very non-random (and deadly) results.
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There are really very few fossils, all things considered. The molecular record is much clearer and doesn’t have the gaps you mentioned – it also has transitional protein. Speaking of transitional forms, they have found traditional forms of, say, the whale, and we have records of transitional ant castes since the time of Darwin!
So it’s not a fact that things evolutionize? It’s not a fact that cats came from bigger cats? It’s not a fact that things adapt and change?
“The third objection (still at the heart of debates about Darwin) concerns the lack of transitional types. Darwin admitted this problem and dealt with it by referring the reader to the future discoveries of more fossils. This has taken place, and thousands of intermediate types have been found, although not in the numbers and sequences that Darwin’s theory seems to demand.
And there were major objections to Darwin’s method. He was proposing to explain something which he could not directly observe (obviously so, since evolution of one species into another takes far too long). So he formulated a hypothesis, without no direct evidence of the process he was explaining, and hoped that the explanatory power of the theory would make up for the lack of any direct observational evidence. Today this method (called the hypothetico-deductive method) is standard; but in Darwin’s time, when many scientists demanded (in the tradition launched by Bacon) that science must always have a firm empirical base, his method of arguing seemed suspiciously unscientific.â€
Wish I could but it was a History channel special on the breaking the gnome code.
I said near blank DNA, I think it is a well accepted fact that genetic information is accumulated over time, is it not? If so I have more questions on this.
It’s the best word I know to describe what I mean, technically correct or not. Sorry my vocabulary is not as good as others here. Your statement above is a good indicator of the need for “knowâ€. How does an unintelligent chaotic DNA reject weak genes and keep strong ones, what reference does it use to determine between the two? If it is chaotic then how does it repeatedly and consistently reject the same weak ones? Mathematically speaking wouldn’t there be a completely lopsided amount of failed mutations if it were purely chance?
Yet it does not change into something else, it just mutates into a slightly different form, which is analogous to microevolution that nobody denies.
A single protein is not the makeup or complexity that life is and I fail to see how this is any evidence of a total change from one species to another, IOW, I don’t get the jump.
As I understand it there have been severe problems with artificially induced mutation of proteins as an experiment to support this. In fact, no experiment following the scientific method has successfully been demonstrated to support the possibility one species completely changing into another working with proteins or cellular structure.
At best it will always be a theory based on speculation or subjective interpretation of evidence that only proves that life can mutate in small increments to fit its environment, which we can already positively prove.
Look up the definition of fact, hypothesis, and theory, and you’ll see the difference. Evolution is a very well proven theory, and I don’t deny this, but it’s not a fact, and it will not become a fact if more knowledge is accumulated. It will become a better proven theory.
Navigator does an excellent job explaining this in the first page.
Kingdaddy,
Intelligent Design is one big argumentum ad ignorantiam.
The basic Intelligent Design premise is as followes:
x is not known in evolution therefore intelligent design–classic appeal to ignorance–logical fallacy.
Evolution is something like:
x is similar to y which is similar to present z, therefore x became y then became z out of necessity. The premises are well proven hypothesis, and observed(in micro-organisms), so the conclusion–Evolution-- is, inductively, reasonable as a conclusion.
You can appeal to holes in evolution, but that will not support ID. You can completely shatter the evolution theory, and you will have zero proof for ID. Not-evolution does not mean pro-ID. You need proof for this intelligent design. The premise “but everything is too complicated!” does not imply an intelligent designer, but the fact that it’s complicated(if that subjectively)
Personally, I don’t believe in any of the two theories, but I think evolution sucks less than the others.
This harkens back to the fact that ‘species’ is a human term used to explain something far more complex seen in nature.
Need I mention that dogs have undergone observed speciation in capitivity? What about the switch from Smallpox virus to Vaccinia virus to make a vaccine?
Need natural processes? Well, SIV to HIV is a classic example. HIV comes from SIV, yet HIV is not SIV. For macroscopic transition species, check out what Darwin wrote on social insects. He observed several transitional castes there, just as an example.
Lastly:
Either we have a very lazy designer, who has built everything sequentially, step-by-step from a single ur-organism-template, or we have evolution.
I’ll put my money on door #2.
Well that’s not a fact to Tristan so none of that matters.
Tristan, I don’t think that’s the point of the added particle -ism,-ist at all. These are not as much about religion as they are names of philosophical stances.
Theism means one believes they can prove the existence of God. Deism means one believes there is a god, but that such is unprovable. Agnosticism means you believe God’s existence can’t be proven nor disproven. Atheism is the stand that belief in god is irrational. …Just like realism, idealism, empiricism, skepticism – they are philosophic terms, at least when someone is talking philosophy.
Isn’t that the/an accepted usage?
mrn
Just for the sake of accuracy:
Theism means a belief in God or gods, not a belief that their existence can be proven.
Deism means a belief in a creator God who never interferes with the creation.
Thanks. I just checked Webster’s Online and the Philosophical Dictionary online. Their definitions are closer to yours, I’d say; more about two traditions of belief rather than exact philosophical categories.
m-w.com/
philosophypages.com/dy/
However, when I looked under “god, existence of” in the Philosophical Dictionary, it had a different twist on “theistic”:
“Attempts to demonstrate the existence of god have been a notable feature of Western philosophy. The most commonly employed theistic efforts include: the cosmological argument, the ontological argument, the teleological argument, and the moral argument. The most serious atheological argument is the problem of evil.”
This usage should fit deists as well, if they are naturalistic and believers; so I’m not sure the definitions I gave I haven’t heard somewhere before.
But I still don’t get what is wrong with categorising atheists in the OP. If Navigator’s definitions are right, these terms are for patterns of belief, into which Tristan is liable to fall into one. If I were right and these are philosophical stances why not address it as a philosophical category?
Is it that there are not aevolutionists? Is it just this category (terms for belief in God), long dominated by the pious, forms the negation from it’s own name?
To try to offset this, shall I call myself an amaterialist? But that’s not right; I do believe in material existence, but I believe in spirit too. There is more in my composite view than there is in materialism, so it seems more accurate to negate that which the materialist negates. Is he an aspiritualist? What would he like to be called?
Maybe he’s a “thatsallthereisist”?
i dont mind being called an atheist just as long as people dont assume it means that i worship the god of science.
the word “ism” in itself has a negative connotations and shouldnt. so its no surprise that atheism does also. i find nothing wrong with categorizing beliefs just as long as assumptions arent made.
Just like you atheists coming up with your scientisms! (Like that?)
awesome.
First off: Straighten up philosopher. We, men of rationality, are not flocking to ILP to argue with people with whom we agree with, but people with whom we disagree with. If thy ego cans’t take a blow, then I suggest you not hear those who disagree with you, 'nemore. Statements like those bring shame to ILP.
Secondly, it is not my definition.
And thirdly, just because a thing is not a fact, does not mean that ‘it doesn’t matter’.
What exactly makes religion a special theory, when compared to any other theory?
You tell me. Does atheism stand alone, or is it a branch of the theistic beliefs? “I am an atheist”, tell me what you know about me, by that statement alone? One criteria for it to be an -ism, I would imagine, would be that it has to connote something. A characteristic of one who claims to be one should be very clear. Being as atheism cannot stand alone as an -ism, I propose that the category is moot.
The idea that you don’t believe in one absolute, to someone who believes in absolutes, implies that you believe in another absolute.
Religion itself isn’t actually a theory as much as a practice, imo.
But belief in God is the default theory/belief which is why we say a-theist.
I suppose if you want to get political about this you could invent a positive term to mean “atheism” – just like someone invented the terms “pro-life” and “pro-choice” to sound more positive in place of “anti-abortion” and “pro-murder.”
Atheist means you don’t believe in the existence of God.
So it’s not a fact were even on ILP right now, or that we are even exchanging words? It’s just a good theory that we are? Is this the view you hold? Nothing is fact?
I just dont’ see it. I see that it’s a fact things evolutionize, whether it’s from a single cell it’s just a theory, but on things that change, evolutionize, there’s nothing to deny that process, it’s fact. We’ve have proof things evolutionize, things still do, you do, etc. Thing do gradually develop, I think it’s most definitely safe to call it a fact and I see no reason not to.
The question you need to ask yourself is if it’s a ‘fact’ evolution is not a ‘fact’? And when I say evolution, I mean gradual change. Most people have been duped into thinking evolution is all about the theory of one single cell start.
This is a matter of semantics. You need to be brought up to speed on what hypothesis/theories/facts are, and I don’t feel like doing it. You’re arguing something you clearly have no understanding off. Look up Karl Popper.
When someone adopts a theory, it then becomes a belief, then the belief is practiced.
No. Nihilism is the default theory/belief.
Atheism negates much more than just the belief of the existence of god. Atheism meansabsence of theism. That means that atheism negates the whole of theism. As I’ve said four-five times before in this topic, the negation of a belief, however popular that belief may be, does not warrant a category of it’s own.
[rant]
There’s billions of theories about stuff. I negate almost all of them. Is theism any different? No. Theism has been blown out of proportion, to the point that it isn’t even recognized as a belief, but almost as something you’re born with. I believe such terms as anti-theism, and atheism, are terms which add to this foolishness, and I ask that those who are not fooled by theism, to take a look at what they are doing when they label themselves as [__]-theists. We are men first, then we become men with beliefs; subjective, false, necessity/ego-driven, beliefs. [/rant]