Thursday, September 1, 2011

Some basic terminology and background.

This is the second half from my reply to Dale. This way, nobody has to go through the first part of my beliefs.

Theory: The scientific meaning of this word is not the same as  the colloquial or lay man's definition. In science a theory is a complete body of knowledge. A theory becomes a theory when all available evidence suggests that it is probably the case. If a single piece of evidence comes up, the theory must either be refined or thrown out.

A scientific theory does two things:

i. Accounts for and explains all available evidence.
ii. Makes predictions as to what we can expect to find in the related field.



Peer-reviewed publishing- This is the process by which new knowledge is added to the scientific consensus. A scientist does an experiment, builds a conclusion and goes to other experts in the field. Regardless of whether or not the other experts agree, they poke holes in the research. The pull in every which way to ensure that his or her findings are indeed accurate. There are extremely high standards that must be met when things are accepted as science.

So now we have that out of the way.

The 'evolution' part of the 'theory of evolution' is also tricky for some people****. Evolution is observed. It happens. We have known that it happens since before Darwin. What he contributed was the mechanisms behind the observation. The theory, as a body of knowledge, explains the observation (which is the data) through natural selection, sexual selection, punctuated equilibrium, drift, etc. So when we refer to the theory of evolution, we are referring to the knowledge that describes the process of how organisms evolve.

****Evolution does not deal with the origin of life on earth; that field of study is abiogenesis.

There are millions of peer reviewed  articles that support evolution. Millions. The theory is one of the most solidified that we have. (For many in depth examples, with citations click here.)

So why don't I buy into creationism?

1. It does not explain anything or tell us anything about the natural world. With science you gather all the facts, the evidence, and you make a conclusion. With creationism/ intelligent design, you start out with your conclusion and then announce all contradicting facts are wrong. For example; If God made us in present form, why do we have complete fossil records for the evolution of modern species? Why do humans share 95% of DNA with chimpanzees? Why does all the evidence indicate common ancestry?

There are no pieces of evidence that point us in the direction that life on earth was designed in the modern form. Creationism/ ID merely asserts that something is the case without doing the research to back it up.

With real science, you are constantly trying to overturn the accepted theory with every experiment you create; you are testing it. You want to blow a hole in it. Creationists, on the other hand, frantically try to protect their brittle impostor of science; they never try to disprove themselves. They say they have the evidence; but nothing is stopping them from publishing their findings in scientific journals and overthrowing modern biology.


2. It makes no predictions. (Remember a theory not only explains what we have, but it tells us what we should expect to find.) The reason our live spans have increased so much is because of modern medicine, which is based on evolutionary theory. Darwin wasn't able to see things on the molecular/ cellular level, but he predicted that there would be molecules of inheritance. With the discovery of DNA in the mid 20th century, we know exactly what the molecules of inheritance are, and how they work.

Intelligent design doesn't have that. There are no predictions made by this idea. It cannot tell us what we expect to find. It cannot tell us how to treat disease. But germ theory (based off of the theory of evolution) can. It cannot tell us what would happen if we tampered with a specific gene; because it denies that these structures are what shapes us, physically.

6 comments:

  1. Okay? Here are a few predictions and observations we can put together through ID.

    1.The universe will reveal evidence and order to reveal Intelligent Design (ID)

    2.There will be limits to organisms that undergo variation. Dogs will always produce dogs. but a dog may produce a collie or a great dane.

    3.In those variations, there will be many SYMBIOTIC relationships between organisms.

    All of these predictions are directly observable today. Further i predict that

    4. There will be a purpose to life. We were designed by- a creator for a purpose

    5. There will be a sense of justice, love and an ability to produce kindness. These things are borrowed in the evolution theory's explanation for how we survive today.

    6. There will be a way to find the will of the creator. Maybe even a book telling us how He did it and why.

    7. I predict there will be an afterlife where we must face the creator and be held accountable for the things we do on this earth.

    But anyways lets continue.

    8. There will be legends of a "golden age" where people lived for a long time!

    9. There will be evidence for people living for a great number of years. showing signs of things like bigger jaws and larger eyebrow ridges (your eyebrows never stop growing fyi)

    10. There will be biological problems in us like wisdom teeth and allergies as time progresses, because we are an inferior copy to what man once was.

    11. There will be a universal longing (especially within is or the "wouldnt it be great if") for things to restore to the Garden of Eden.


    So. There are some of my predictions. have @ em.

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  2. I'll lump this response with the others.

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Dogs won't always produce dogs. To start with, cynodonts produced dogs; and we don't know what dogs will produce. Theropod dinosaurs evolved into birds: recent discoveries in China cemented that one. A hoofed carnivore evolved into whales and toothed whales evolved baleen--the whole evolutionary series was discovered in the 80s and 90s. A shallows-dwelling fish, Tiktaalik, a fish with forelegs and elbows and fingers, is the perfect intermediate form between fish and amphibian. It was discovered in the early 2000s by scientists who predicted the age of rocks and types of environments where the transition might have occurred. You see only dogs because evolution on a major scale takes millions of years and you have 70. We have written records going back only about 5,200 years, so you won't find anyone writing about how "cynodonts changed into dogs yesterday." We have the fossils: we win!

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  5. Part 1/
    Unfourtunately interpritation does not mean fact.They have similar links because those things work in nature. This is not because they branched off by magical reasons like separation (causes variation) or gene mutations (especially because gene mutation does not produce new information, it simply utilizes the old information to produce an adaptation, which is not evideice of a new species being created). Variation has limits, but does not produce new species from such. Natural selction caues variation, but does not create new species, and we have not seen such happen. In fact. If things were evolving, why do they not evolve when we see them? Shouldnt they still be evolving today and producing part new animal part dog? They would if they ever did. Evolution shouldnt only work in the wild behind closed doors or long ago and far away, but should be a consistant law of nature, but never does such. This is because IT NEVER HAPPENED.

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  6. This evolution theory needs reformatting because trees and humans having cells does not mean they came from a rock soup. Im just not buying it. You can call it a victory if you like. Ill call it a victory because I say that I think my spaghetti monster organized the fossils to fool you mortals and make them look alike to explain how he is wants to be a ninja so no one can find out about him... You have your beliefs, I have mine :) But bottom line is, evolutionary processes are not observable or measurable. Only interpritable and therefore not science. Your common links = common bonds argument comes from something Ill call irreversable complexity. (opposite of irreducible complexity) Meaning that because we are more effiecient than things in the past, we must have evolved from something inferior and that all things we posess as a species today is evidence for change because those things must have been superior (with no evidence how) in the past.

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