Evolution: A theory disproven?

[silentassassin]

The link here. Do read it before posting.
Honestly I never knew quite where I stood on evolution but I could say this destroyed any possibility of beliving it. Any other thoughts on it?

[Darkdragon]

While I only scanned the whole article, it doesn't seem to present anything which I haven't seen, so I'll use what I know of arguments against evolution to denounce the article. I'll gloss over the less technical counter-arguments and allow the rest of the community judge fairly after that.

• Indirect evidence is as valid as direct evidence. If you go to a sink and the counter is all wet, you can conclude from that evidence that someone (sloppy) has used the sink recently. You hadn't seen the person use the sink, but you can tell the sink has been used. Unfortunately, indirect evidence tend not to be so straightforward - many of the things which the article basically claims as "flimsy" are indirect consequences with current evolution theory.
• Lack of evidence for something does not mean something is false. Even if there is lack of conclusive evidence in evolution theory, that does not make it wrong. For example, quantum physics predicted the existence of the W and Z bosons in the 1950's. Until its existence was confirmed in 1983, there was no direct proof of the particles, but that didn't mean it was untrue.
• The article suffers from the fallacy of false choice. Alright, so you are totally convinced that what you know about evolution theory is shaken, and perhaps "disproved" (Note on that in addendum). The article takes the chance to preach about creationism, and I say "preach" because it doesn't mention other theories which deal with the the origin of life. In short, it's saying "So, it isn't evolution, so it must be creationism." There are many other fish in the sea too, just not so well known.
• Lastly, the source is biased. Try and find the same argument from an undogmatic source.

I don't have the time to flesh out the arguments here, but I'm going to say that I don't agree too much with evolution. It's simply the best system we have.

Addendum: Science, with the way it is set up, cannot prove the absence of something. In fact, it can't prove conclusively (like in mathematics) any hypothesis; at most science can only claim that a hypothesis confirms with our understanding of science.

EDIT: Does anyone know how to make a numbered list? I thought it was just [list=1], but apparently, I was mistaken. Changed to bulleted list.

[Janus Whitefurr]

"The object of this site is to help people overcome problems by supernatural means, and to point out key facts about the supernatural which many either don't know about or deny. Many people today only try to remedy their problems with natural solutions when in many cases only a supernatural solution is the answer!"

....

No.

[superluser]

Let's start with one very simple statement:

DARWIN WAS WRONG.  Wrong.  No doubt about it.

His theories could not be considered valid today, due to some very important discoveries that were going on at the same time and which he did not incorporate into his theories.

The discoveries were by Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian priest who discovered genetics.  As in, the word didn't exist until he coined it in the 1850s.  Mendel was wrong, too.  Mendel's studies were based on traits of the pea plant that did not incorporate incomplete dominance, codominance, or sex-linked traits (I think).  These were discovered in the 20th century after people forgot about Mendel and performed similar experiments on fruit flies.

This wasn't correct, either, and Watson and Crick later were able to refine these theories after discovering DNA.  (Watson seems to be tending towards eugenics these days, so I suppose he isn't correct, either.  Eugenics is not compatible with evolutionary theory, and it just goes to show that all sorts of people are wrong about evolution)

(NOTA BENE: Eugenics is NOT compatible with evolutionary theory.  A previous version of this message forgot the very important word `not.'  I regret the error.)

At around this time, Pope Pius XII declared that evolution was compatible with Christianity.

After this, a man named Stephen Jay Gould had an idea that showed that Darwin was probably wrong for at least one other reason.  Under his theory, called Punctuated Equilibrium, populations of species remain stable for millions of years, and then when some group becomes isolated from the majority of the population, the population undergoes radical change in a few years.  This is why in some cases there may be very few transitional fossils (though transitional fossils are actually not that uncommon).  This theory is still relatively new, and not universally accepted, but it looks promising as a complement to gradualism.

In the next few years, you can look forward to something called epigenetics, which will either prove to be at least marginally accurate and will revolutionize the field of genetics, or it will prove to be or complete bunk.  Almost certainly, the fact that junk DNA plays a role in disease will force us to change the theory of evolution.

So the theory of evolution that I described above is wrong, too.  And that's OK.

By the way, have some transitional fossils.  See also.

[Baal Hadad]

The link here. Do read it before posting.
Honestly I never knew quite where I stood on evolution but I could say this destroyed any possibility of beliving it. Any other thoughts on it?

Sounds to me like you were looking for an excuse not to believe in it, if you never knew where you stood and now you're that firmly convinced....

What I want to know is, why is the word "evolution" so closely associated with Charles Darwin, as though he came up with the very concept?  He didn't.  His theory was natural selection as a means by which evolution works, but the idea of evolution itself predates Darwin.

[Dekari]

Showing that there are holes in a THEORY doesn't disprove it.  The fact that it is still a "theory" means that it hasn't been proven.

We can go another step and point out that creationism is itself also a "theory" with even more holes than evolution,  the biggest one being this "god" deal (no offense you all of you who believe in god but until he/she comes down here, taps me on the shoulder, and says hi....my faith is elsewhere.)

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

The article seems to have quite a few fallacies, both in fact and in logic, which make its argument ultimately unpersuasive, to me at least.


1 .If you read the Origin of Species, Darwin's big book, you'll note that he is not a geologist, and never dug for fossils. Fossil records were looked at in some early theories of Catastrophism. (Basically, there were a lot more species on the earth at one point than there are now, but a lot of them died out.)

Darwin first came up with his ideas about evolution by looking at various breeds of finches along a set of islands. He noted that their beaks tended to differ based on what sorts of foods were available on each island, seemingly adapted, some for one type a seed, a second breed another, and so on.

2. Fossils are tricky things. Essentially, to yield a fossil you need some sort of imprint in rock that gets covered over. Go push on a boulder outside. Have your palms made a print? Probably not. Usually you only get fossils in some sort of soft sediment, like mud, which gets quickly covered over in something that's hard enough to protect it but at the same time didn't wipe out the original imprint. As you can imagine, it's not something that happens every day, and finding preserved fossils is rare stuff. You can't expect every species to ever live, many of whom had no bones, or hard portions to their body, to make imprints.

3. This one covers both mutation rate and for the rapid evolutionary rate. There are a number of proteins (any biologists in there, I can't remember the gobbledygook that is their names) that regulate cell division. Basically, every time  any cell divides, there's a chance that it does the process wrong, and that there's either missing or extraneous material. Then these little proteins come along and almost "spellcheck" the new cell against the original, looking for anything wrong. If it is, they tend to zap it. These things are pretty reliable, and that's why you're not growing wings or weird skin lesions or something.


However, bodies posed to repeated stress for a long time (and this has been observed in all tested multicellular organisms, from humans to corn to gazelles), produce far less than normal levels  of these fixer proteins. Go hungry, endure extremes in temperature, survive a nasty disease, and your mutation rate goes *way* up, even if whatever the damage is has no direct connection to your endocrine system.

Essentially, it's a genetic type of intelligent gambling. Yes, most mutations are harmful. If things are fine, it's beneficial to the survival of the species that they happen as rarely as possible. But if things are *not* going well, if you're barely surviving, well, then it's time to toss those dice and hope that some of your offspring develop a mutation that's beneficial.

Bear in mind, what's beneficial in one place might be lethal somewhere else. If you have a number of mutations in your HFE gene sequence (and you probably hail from western Europe if you do), you might have a disease called hemochromatosis. (not to be confused with hemophilia, uncontrolled bleeding.) It causes uncontrolled iron buildup in your bloodstream, and if it goes untreated, can kill you in your forties. (It's pretty easy to treat though). One might wonder, why harmful genetic mutations like this still exist if that whole Survival of the fittest thing tends to weed them out. Ultimately, the iron reshuffling keeps it out of the lymph nodes, and makes people with hemochomatosis virtually immune to the bubonic plague, as well as a number of other diseases that spread through the lymph nodes and need iron to propagate. (It seems to give some resistance to HIV as well)

4. Genetic working is a bit more indirect than what is taught at a middle school level. A lot of people come away from their little section on Mendel and think "Oh, if I have  eye gene A, I'll have blue eyes, but if I have the eye gene B, they'll be brown." It's not quite that simple.  Genes tell the body to build a variety of proteins, and those proteins do affect things like your height, eye color, immune responses, diet, etc, but genetics isn't the only thing regulating protein activity.  It would be a cruel experiment to pull off, but if you were to take identical twins, and separate them, feeding one normally and the second one putting on a starvation diet, I can guarantee that while their genotypes would be exactly the same, the well-fed twin would grow up to be bigger and generally healthier than the starved one.


Sure, there are holes you can poke in evolutionary theory, like how the statistical nature of evolution seems to be at odds with relatively low breeding rates in mammals. (Long winded thing, that), but the article cited doesn't really give too many of them.

[Baal Hadad]

Showing that there are holes in a THEORY doesn't disprove it.  The fact that it is still a "theory" means that it hasn't been proven.

We can go another step and point out that creationism is itself also a "theory" with even more holes than evolution,  the biggest one being this "god" deal (no offense you all of you who believe in god but until he/she comes down here, taps me on the shoulder, and says hi....my faith is elsewhere.)

Sorry to go off-topic, but that's something I wanted to address.  Too many people nowadays seem to be confused as to what faith is--they turn it into a matter of fact.  In other words, believing in something is considered the same thing as acknowledging it as fact, and not believing in something is considered the same as recognizing that it doesn't exist.

Faith is for situations (as with God--we can't even agree on a definition for that word) where there ARE no facts either way.  No possible proof that it's right, no possible proof that it's wrong.  When that's the case all you can do is either believe or not, and say why, and then who's to say you're wrong?  Or right?

In other words, if God comes down here, taps you on the shoulder, and says hi, your faith dies at that moment because then God's existence becomes a matter of fact, not faith.

(In addition, theory has a different definition as scientific jargon than its lay use--it's stronger than a hypothesis but weaker than a law.)

[ShadesFox]

I've not even gotten through a quarter of that and there are just so many material errors that it is amazing.  The biggest one of note to me:

"To date no breeding experiments have ever resulted in major, new traits resulting in a completely new species."

A study of long term evolution of E.Coli colonies by Richard Lenski (Blount, Z. D., C. Z. Borland, and R. E. Lenski. 2008. Historical contingency and the evolution of a key innovation in an experimental population of Escherichia coli. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 105:7899-7906.) showed that a strain spontaneously developed the ability to digest citrate which, in laboratory diagnoses, means that it is no longer E.Coli.  E.Coli is usually differentiated by its inability to digest citrate.  Extensive testing showed that there was not a latent gene for citrate digestion but a new, novel gene was born out of a series of random mutations in 31,500+ generations of bacteria.

(off topic: Damn you people post fast!  Knock it off and let me post!)

[Dekari]

In other words, if God comes down here, taps you on the shoulder, and says hi, your faith dies at that moment because then God's existence becomes a matter of fact, not faith.

"I need not prove that I exist.  For proof denies faith, and without faith, I cannot exist."


I know the line too.  

And this is where I leave this discussion.  I'm trying to stick to my rule of "never discuss religion or politics with anyone other than family...it never ends good."

[superluser]

(off topic: Damn you people post fast!  Knock it off and let me post!)

Yeah.  I forgot to put something into my post and by the time I edited it, four more posts had happened. (You may want to go back and reread it, it has a couple of examples of why modern evolutionary theory is probably wrong.  Bonus points if you have strong feelings about Lamarck)

And I *still* forgot something:

Pope John Paul II in 1996 (in a statement titled ``Truth Cannot Contradict Truth''):

Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.

Also: The Neanderthal was not a human.  It was either a different subspecies of H. sapiens (H. sapiens neanderthalensis rather than H. sapiens sapiens) or a different species (H. neanderthalensis).  See also: Java Man

[silentassassin]

I meant Darwin's little theory of evolution just as a head's up. Just to state something else I haven't looked into anything on evolution much is why never knew where I stood on Mr. Darwins theory.

[Darkmoon]

All of this discussion without stating the most basic of facts:

Scientific theories are not theories. I hate when people get that wrong.

"Oh, it's just a theory." Yes, and they're just a moron... although, to be fair, that second point is actually correct.

[superluser]

silentassassin, I've got two questions for you.

• Do you believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead in the same body in which He was crucified and died?
  
• Do you believe that the Bible is accurate? If you do, I'm willing to stipulate that the Bible is accurate for the purposes of this discussion. (literally true, mostly true, metaphorically true, accurate in doctrine but not necessarily in history...or anything else you might believe. I'll let you define accurate, but I don't want you to deny your faith in the process)

[Reese Tora]

Ow, my brain...

The person who wrote this article is either extremly ignorant, or lying through his teeth.  I didn't even get a fifth of the way through the article before a combination of tiredness and anger made me stop before I got a headache.

1: most scientists are not atheists, nor do they find the thought ofa  creator anathema.
2: evolution, the theory, is a body of ideas describing what we know about evolution, the observable fact.
3: Darwin's works is based on variations in finches (and other animals) that he noted on his famous voyage in the galapagos obord the Beagle.
4: The fossil record does contain transitional forms, and
4b: fossilization is rare and it would be extrordinary to find transitionals for each and every species that has ever existed
4c: as described in the theory of punctuated equilibreum, speciation when a small group is cut off from the alrger genetic group tends to occur at a more rapid pace as there is less of a population for traits to propagate through, a quicker speciation leave less time in which a member of the transitioning species might die in conditions where fossilization can occur.


and then I stopped reading before I popped a vein.

[Vidar]

Here's my review of this article.

The opening chapter tries to make it look as though there is barely any evidence for evolution, and that the theory is made merely of wishful thinking and assumptions.
Richard Dawkins has recently written a book that details the evidence for evolution: The greatest show on earth. This book details much more then I can post here (just go read the book). Rest assured, though, the evidence is much more than a few fossils. Next to the mountains of fossils we now also have DNA, which points to the same tree of life that evolution points to.

In the chapter "The problem" the writer states that since unbelievers find the thought of divine creation by a god unthinkable, so they were forced to some up with something else.
This is blatantly false. Charles Darwin, when he was formulating his theory, was a Christian, and indeed was training to be part of the clergy of the Anglican church. It was not until after the publication of "The origin of species" that Darwin became an agnostic, and even then he was still active in the parish of the Anglican church.

Chapter 3: The Theory
Again, numerous inaccuracies. Darwin didn't get his theory of evolution from the fossil record. Ever heard of Darwin's Finches? (if not, google it) Darwin formulated much of his theory during his voyage on the Beagle, and in particular on the Galapagos Islands, where the various species of animals there differ slightly on each island.
The summary of the theory leaves much to be desired as well. Even I can do a better job:
According to the theory of evolution, living things reproduce with small variations. These variations are called 'mutations'. Some of these variations help an animal to survive in the environment it find itself in, sometimes it doesn't. The individuals that are best adapted to their environment tend to survive and reproduce, and the ones that are less well adapted, tend not to reproduce. This is called 'natural selection'. Over many generations of small variations and natural selection a species tends to get better adapted to it's environment.

Chapter 4: what the fossil record shows
The first sentence of this chapter already contains a misconception. Theories do not become facts. In science, theories are explanations of the facts. The theory of evolution is there to explain the fact of evolution. To say that evolution is still a theory, and therefore not true is to betray either a gross ignorance of the workings of science, or a determination to mislead people out of some misplace piety.
Then the chapter props up the old "there are no transitional fossils" 'argument'. Yeah, except for the rather abridged list on wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils ), and many others.
Two of the more famous ones are archeopteryx and ambulocetus. Aarcheopteryx is transitional in that it shows many features of modern birds (asymetrical flight feathers, certain fused bone structures, etc.), but lack other bird-like features (such as a beak), and retains some dinosaur-like features, such as a reptilian mouth with teeth.
On top of that our own lineage has a near-complete record all the way back to Ida (Darwinius Masillae).
Creationists tend to dismiss all these as frauds (even though they don't have any evidence for it being a fraud), or they claim that a fossil is 'merely a (insert species)', like "archeopterys is merely a bird', or 'Australopithecus is merely an ape/a chimpanzee'. A little bit of research (such as googling "intermediate fossils") shows the inanity of these claims in brilliant detail.
Then there's the claim that species appear 'suddenly and fully formed' and 'unrelated to what came before', complete with a link to a whole bunch of shameless quote-mines. Of course they fail to give an example of an animal that suddenly appeared out of nowhere, because no such thing exists. Also, quote-mining is one of the most dishonest things you can do when presenting your case. By now I'm entirely convinced that the person who wrote this pile of junk is either a professional creationists, who tout these 'arguments' for personal gain (like mister Kent Hovind did, or Ken Ham still does), or someone brainwashed into believing these lies.

Chapter 5:Darwin's view on gaps in the fossil record
This chapter I can't really say anything about with certainty, because I don't know what Darwin's view on the fossil record was, other then that at the time it was still very incomplete, but that be hoped that future generations would unearth far more fossils to fill in the gaps.

Chapter 6: Breeding limitations
This chapter starts by stating that evolution isn't true, because some ridiculous mosaics aren't possible, such as a sheep with rat-legs. They don't tell you that evolution also doesn't allow for these things. This is Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron's 'crocoduck' argument all over again. To put it bluntly: EVOLUTION DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY.
They also use the mule as an example of how evolution supposedly doesn't work, but evolution doesn't work that way either. new species are not created through hybridization. A new species comes into existence after a population of a species gets cut off from the rest off it's species, and is subjected to a different environment for many successive generations. We have seen this happen. In the case of various ring-species we even have all the transitional forms living alongside both the ancestral and the new species geographically distributed in gradually differing environments.
They also complain that no breeding program has ever resulted in radical new features. Well of course not. No-one has ever done it for enough generations. Evolution takes place over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. Our own entire species is only at most 250000 years old. We don't live long enough to see evolution in action, even when we artificially accelerate it through artificial selection.
And again, the chapter ends with a list of quote-mines.

A little advise for everyone: if an article starts propping up quotes of people out of context, and seemingly in favour of their position, but doesn't actually show any evidence, go read something else, like DMFA. It'll rot your brain a lot less.

Chapter 7 of this increasingly dishonest piece of [extremely censored]
Mutations are not the cause of evolution. Evolution is cause by mutations AND natural selection. Take one of these away, and you don't have evolution.

Chapter 8 mutations are harmful, neutral or rare.
BULLSHITE. Each human being comes out of their mother's womb with over a hundred mutations. These mutations are very small, but definitely there. If these mutations are expressed at all, the are usually only visible as family traits. Go look through your family album, and pick out the traits that are typical of your family, or your father's family or your mother's family, etc. These are due to mutations in your/their ancestral lineage. Sometime a mutation becomes widespread through a population of a species (such as the lighter skin of those of northern European descent). This is called a trait.  In the case for skin-color in humans it was due to the reduced amount of sunlight in the cold barren north of Europe that interfered with the production of vitamin D. Dark skin in Scandinavia was a disadvantage, and so the lighter-skinned people had more offspring there. This was not a problem in sunny Africa, so in Africa humans retained their dark complexion.

Chapter 9 Here we make fun of punctuated equilibrium.
*facepalm*
They don't say that 'quickly' in evolutionary terms is still over hundreds of thousands of years, the lying bastards.

Chapter 10 punctuated equilibrium directly opposes laws of genetics
No it doesn't.
Traits spread faster through a small population than through a large one, and that allows for slightly faster evolution, until the species is adapted to it's environment enough to increase it's population, and after that new traits spread slower through the population, and evolution slows down to a crawl again. It's not rocket science.
Then this [insert profanity] goes on about how reproduction is so 'finely tuned' and 'amazingly stable'. Tell that to any woman ho has had a miscarriage, or a child with any of a huge number of genetic defects. Reproduction is messy, and far from flawless. Hospitals don't check new-born babies for birth-defects just for teh lulz, you know.

Chapter 11 Natural selection is a mindless process
At least the title has it right. Natrual selection is a mindless process, just like every other natural process.
And now for the incredibly tired old argument of 'look at the complexity of the wonderfully perfect human eye'. Let's rip this one to shreds yet again.
The human is a complete mess. The nerves that connect the eye to the brain go in front of the photoreceptors at the back of the eye, instead of behind it. The nerves then go through a hole in the back of the eye right in the area that we are supposed to use to see. This results in a blind spot in our eye. The eye then has to constantly jiggle to order to compensate. If any god was involved in the design of this piece of crap, he sure was a moron.
this is no problem for evolution. Evolution goes with what works, regardless of whether the solution is elegant or not, and our eyes work well enough for us to survive.
For more smackdown of the design argument, go watch Ken Miller's account of the Kitzmiller vs Dover trail.
Also, more quotemines. Please shove them where the sun doesn't shine.

chapter 12 Does evolution still happen today?
Yes, it does.
One of the most inane statements ever: 'survival can not be seen of proven'. Yes it can. If something is dead, then it didn't survive. If it did, and it reproduces, then that generation was a success. If all members of a species dies, that's not survival. It's extinction.
'A struggle for existence has not been found among animals or plants'? Are you fucking kidding me? Go watch a nature documentary. Notice how the animals are not usually ordering their food from the buffet. Herbivores generally eat the plants, and try to run away from predators. Predators tend to try to catch other animals, such as the herbivores. If a predator doesn't catch enough prey, they starve to death. If a herbivore doesn't run fast enough, it get's eaten. Starting to see the struggle yet?

Chapter I don't really care anymore: missing links
Not these things AGAIN.
Neanderthal man section: lies. Go do a google search.
Piltdown man: the only fraud ever in paleontology, which was uncovered by evolution.
Java man: Just one of many homo erectus fossils. Note how they put 'discovered' in quotes, as if they try to manipulate the reader into thinking this was another fraud like piltdown man. Oh wait...
Nebraska man: an honest mistake, followed by a media hype not perpetrated by the scientists.

Next to these we have thousands of fossils in our lineage. We now have so many that scientists are arguing whether some specimens are a seperate species, or merely a slight variation of an existing species. to imply that these are the only fossils we have is a base lie, and the author ought to be ashamed of himself for trying to mislead his audience in such a manner.

And now I have read quite enough to know that this article is utter and complete bollocks.

Please go watch this youtube series to reduce brain damages done by this load of shit: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=126AFB53A6F002CC

[bill]

(In addition, theory has a different definition as scientific jargon than its lay use--it's stronger than a hypothesis but weaker than a law.)

I don't even think this is strictly true, laws aren't immutable by any means either (Law of universal gravitation being superseded by Einstein's work)

[Baal Hadad]

(In addition, theory has a different definition as scientific jargon than its lay use--it's stronger than a hypothesis but weaker than a law.)

I don't even think this is strictly true, laws aren't immutable by any means either (Law of universal gravitation being superseded by Einstein's work)

Did I say laws were immutable?  I just said they held more water than theories.

[bill]

I phrased that really badly, what I was trying to get at was that it's really not a question of strength at all, it's probably more accurate to say that it's a difference in scope; laws are generally about specific relations between quantities, while theories tend to try to go for a general explanation of a set of relations and observations.

Maybe I'm completely wrong here as well, too.

[Baal Hadad]

And this is where I leave this discussion.  I'm trying to stick to my rule of "never discuss religion or politics with anyone other than family...it never ends good."

Why "other than family"?  Family members can disagree strongly on religion and politics as well....

[ShadesFox]

From what I've seen, a scientific law is a scientific theory proposed by someone with an overinflated sense of self importance.

Also, the main difference between the lay use of theory and the scientific use is that lay people seem to have this odd want to pin a specific definition on what a theory is and build of hierarchy of theories and laws and hypothesis.  It really doesn't work like that.

[Vidar]

As far as I know, a scientific law is merely an outdated bit of terminology. These days we call them theories.

Also, sorry for the massive wall of text I posted earlier. The slab of lies 'article' seriously rammed on my berserk-button.

[superluser]

1: most scientists are not atheists, nor do they find the thought ofa  creator anathema.

Indeed.  In addition to the two popes I mentioned before, Pope Benedict XVI seems to have a very favorable view of evolution, and zero patience for intelligent design theory.  Shortly after he became pope, Cardinal Schönborn wrote an article in support of Intelligent Design.  ``New Pope Favors Intelligent Design'' was the general spin on the article, until the Cardinal got the smackdown from the Vatican Observatory.

Subsequently, the Vatican held a conference on evolution, and the message was clear: Creationists, Intelligent Design advocates need not apply.

[Sunblink]

When I read: "If anyone stops to take a look at this so-called evidence, they will realize that much of it is not evidence but simply a combination of assumptions and wishful thinking."

...I kind of felt like closing the tab. I haven't even gotten into reading the article as a whole and I have this to say: No source that touts its material as being purely factual should relentlessly demean the opposition. Personal opinion being expressed in debate is one thing, but if I read something that claims to be enlightening in any way and the author decides they need to validate their claims through belittlement and insults, then I'm closing the goddamn window and forgetting I ever saw anything.

This comes from a strange hippie who believes in both creationism and evolution. (Largely because I think that while God is responsible for the creation of life, evolution plays into his design. Why wouldn't it? I know, I'm weird.)

Honestly I never knew quite where I stood on evolution but I could say this destroyed any possibility of beliving it. Any other thoughts on it?

Take any website like this with a grain of salt. Seriously. You know what would be even better? Find a website that isn't so inarticulate that it has to resort to ridicule to validate its point.

[Turnsky]

i take it that whoever made that site doesn't believe in graphic designers, either. 

[Aisha deCabre]

I couldn't even read but a few words into the article before I closed the tab.

Here's my belief on the whole grand design thing.  If there -is- a higher power, or powers, all they did was put the building blocks in place...and then, set them loose to their own devices, to see what could happen.  Rarely (if even ever) is there a divine hand in anything.

I graduated from college with a degree in biology...one of the things that we're taught as scientists is to have an open mind and an imagination.  There are religious scientists, and even the other way around...there's a Catholic school in my state somewhere that teaches evolutionary biology.

You especially have to have an open mind about the past because, all you have to go on are clues in the present.  You were never there.  Every single belief, creation story and myth, and even scientific theory, is based on a guess.

Quite honestly I find it stupid that wars were fought, people killed, defending these guesses.

I have a fascination with evolutionary biology myself.  There is evidence that animals have certain traits for reasons, whether adapting to new environmental constraints by having mutations to make it so, and I like to ask questions about that kind of thing.  That doesn't mean that I also disbelieve the things that can't be explained.  Because frankly, how do you even know?

I respect people who do have a firm belief in their religions or their theories, but that's so long as they also respect me.

People who think about it too much don't really get the point.    That's what I believe.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Then this [insert profanity] goes on about how reproduction is so 'finely tuned' and 'amazingly stable'. Tell that to any woman ho has had a miscarriage, or a child with any of a huge number of genetic defects. Reproduction is messy, and far from flawless. Hospitals don't check new-born babies for birth-defects just for teh lulz, you know.

For what it is and does, it _is_ an amazingly stable process. It's just messy and horrible in the edge cases, and humans have lots of edges, so...

This comes from a strange hippie who believes in both creationism and evolution. (Largely because I think that while God is responsible for the creation of life, evolution plays into his design. Why wouldn't it? I know, I'm weird.)

The two are not mutually exclusive. After all, I have yet to see anyone come up with a valid argument that disproves that God, should he or she exist, couldn't have made the world _via_ evolution... (I _think_ I have the right number of negatives in that sentence...)

[ShadesFox]

Another thing people miss about religion, especially the ones that hammer hard on the omnipotent creator, it would be possible to create something, then write a whole backstory to it.  Really.  The universe might not have existed yesterday but was created wholesale complete with billions of years of back story.

Just saying.

[Darkdragon]

Another thing people miss about religion, especially the ones that hammer hard on the omnipotent creator, it would be possible to create something, then write a whole backstory to it.  Really.  The universe might not have existed yesterday but was created wholesale complete with billions of years of back story.

Just saying.

The Omphalos hypothesis?

Nobody has (also) remarked on the logical fallacies inherent in the views (aside from argumentum ad lapidum and ad hominem remarks), which make any article false even if it wasn't on the topic at hand. Although I can't really blame the esteemed community to spiel about the article, nearly every iota within it reeks of ignorance and haughtily attempts to commandeer one's attention.

[Alondro]

As an actual biologist with a masters degree, and as a Christian as well, I simply must weigh in!

The biological definition of evolution has changed several times.  Now it is simply 'genetic change over time'.  Genetic structure does indeed change over time.  One can see this in the rapid mutations of viruses and bacteria.  Therefore, the genetic basis of evolution is proven factually based on current measurable effects.

The big problem, however, lies with the beginning of life.  There is no single hypothesis that accurately accounts for how the first cell came into being.  The problem with irreducible complexity comes up when experiments are done to see how many genes the simplest cell needs to live and reproduce.  I don't know the exact number anymore, but at least 100 genes are crucial for a free-living bacterial cell to survive.  Let us then assume, given that many amino acids are somewhat interchangeable in proteins, that some variability in the genetic code will still allow for the genes to produce a functional protein and carry out the vital function.  The odds of this system arising by random chance (not counting the fact that protein and/or ribozyme (RNA enzymes) machinery for expression of the randomly assembled genes must also pre-exist are simply staggering. 

There is also the problem that random formation of long strings of nucleic acids is energetically unfavorable.  Random chance evntually breaks them down at the same rate they assemble, and there is no guarantee that only nucleic acids will bind to the chain.  All the biochemical experiments are done in very pure and clean conditions.  When you throw all the elements and compounds likely present in a primordial ocean into the mix, the system becomes very messy and even the small strings are less likely to form.

Clearly, much is missing as to how life emerged or was created.  I chose to believe in God because a God of order certainly would overcome that chaotic system and harness entropy itself to bring forth life, which at all times depends on a delicate balance between carefully regulated and orderded structures and chaotic jitterings of molecules into enzyme active sites and free energy reactions resultant from the entropic progression of the universe to exist.

Either life is the most extraordinary accident of all the universe, or a being of vast intelligence took it upon itself to create a system of extraordinary chemical machines. 

Then, if we decide on intelligent design we must ask why was life made.  Well, that's the simplest thing to understand.  Intelligence breeds creativity and imagination, this we know.  An infinite intelligence would have infinite creative tendencies, and intellilgent beings tend to desire communication with other intelligences, and if one is the sole intelligence, but one possesses the power and knowledge to create other intelligences, then the only solution is to create these other living intelligences.  And along the way, the ideas for life of many forms spring to mind.  Simply look at the complexity writers can create in fiction worlds.  At least this part makes perfect sense.   

But as for which beginning is correct, I can only speak on faith.  But I seek absolute truth always.  I can accept anything as the truth as long as the facts surrounding it are totally complete.  The conflicts around the beginning in both religion and science (how many physics theories exist now for the universe's structure?) make me think that neither side has the whole story.  The truth may be far too complicated for our short-lived minds to comprehend.  But we'll never know until we truly reach the limit of our understanding.

I certainly hope that there is God and that there is the possibility of immortality in some form.  There is certainly enough universe to learn about to keep me occupied forever, and if any of a number of theories are correct, there may be many more universes to see as well; many being created as others are destroyed; and endless, limitless progression of the new and unique stretching through a dimensional network the construction of which is almost impossible to fathom; reaching both before and after and all that we perceive as time all at once for it exists outside of what we call time and space, and instead dwells upon only some type of primal cosmic formula and as such is all things at once and from it all universes emerge.

*POP!!*

My head jus asploded.