Evolution is (essentially) fact - so get over it already

[winoman]

Of course we can also see clear examples of Devo-lution (are we not men?) in the form of once (perhaps) human - or at least an offspring of such turn into (white power) Goebbels-rat...a self proclaimed intelect who is frightfully insecure about such (and for good reason)...thus (through the years here in this forum) he frequently feels the need to assert his (self proclaimed but dubious) superiority by demeaning the intelligence and opinions of others. However we are not fooled. In particualr he clings to (and never fails to promote his) rather simplisitc and disproven rascist and sexist ideas - often making it very personal - again the obvious insecurity factor - so sad. His modus operendi is to cut and paste quotes (pretty much all from the same objectivist/classic liberterian/anti socialist web pages) - perhaps OK in themselves (nothing wrong with good critiques) but he thinks these quotes substitute themselves for proper argument and most often they are narrowly applied and address some tangental theoretical point as opposed to addressing something truly useful to the discussion at hand. And what I also find funny is that those who profess this school of thought are ussually thought to be very strong adherents to the principles of Democracy and free action (with full recognition of equal rights)which this certain rodent continually demeans and derides.

Which brings me back again to the point of this thread - Evolution. Now here I will offer some quotes of my own - but I am fully perparred to back up such with my own argument. Its entirely clear to me that anyone who rejects the "Theory" of evolution is basically doing so becuase of an agenda based on ignorance - because rejection of the basic precipts and general acceptance of Evolution essentially amounts to rejection of the principles of science itself. And the observation and application of scientific method in regards to evolution are - if anything - greater then that applied to most other accepted theories (such as reletivity for example) - thus to reject Evolution is basically to say that you choose ignorance over knowledge based on some pre-concieved agenda....and of course - this bespeaks to much of the flatulence which erupts from the orrofices of our local devolved web poster...

[winoman]

Just what is a Scientific Theory and why Evolution fully qualifies

theory - a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses"; "true in fact and theory"

scientific theory - a theory that explains scientific observations; "scientific theories must be falsifiable"scientific theory - a theory that explains scientific observations; "scientific theories must be falsifiable"

scientific knowledge - knowledge accumulated by systematic study and organized by general principles

scientific method n.

The principles and empirical processes of discovery and demonstration considered characteristic of or necessary for scientific investigation, generally involving the observation of phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis concerning the phenomena, experimentation to demonstrate the truth or falseness of the hypothesis, and a conclusion that validates or modifies the hypothesis

Please read the following for a better understanding of what something means when it is termed a “Scientific Theory”:

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Scientific%20theories

Some excerpts:

In science a theory is a model or framework for understanding.

According to Stephen Hawking "a theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations." He goes on to state..."Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory."

Theories can become accepted if they are able to make correct predictions and avoid incorrect ones. Theories which are simpler, and more mathematically elegant, tend to be accepted over theories which are complex. Theories are more likely to be accepted if they connect a wide range of phenomena. The process of accepting theories, or of extending existing theory, is part of the scientific method.

In common usage a theory is often viewed as little more than a guess or a hypothesis. But in science and generally in academic usage, a theory is much more than that. A theory is an established paradigm that explains all or many of the data we have and offers valid predictions that can be tested. In science, a theory can never be proven true, because we can never assume we know all there is to know. Instead, theories remain standing until they are disproven, at which point they are thrown out altogether or modified slightly.

Often the statement "Well, it's just a theory," is used to dismiss controversial theories such as evolution but this is largely due to confusion between the scientific use of the word theory and its more informal use as a synonym for "speculation" or "conjecture." In science, a body of descriptions of knowledge is usually only called a theory once it has a firm empirical basis, i.e. it

1.is consistent with pre-existing theory to the extent that the pre-existing theory was experimentally verified, though it will often show pre-existing theory to be wrong in an exact sense,

2.is supported by many strands of evidence rather than a single foundation, ensuring that it probably is a good approximation if not totally correct,

3.has survived many critical real world tests that could have proven it false,

4.makes predictions that might someday be used to disprove the theory, and

5.Ocam’s Razor is the best known explanation, in the sense of the infinite variety of alternative explanations for the same data.

A good example of a non-scientific "theory" is intelligent design.

[winoman]

“In my field of evolutionary biology, the most prominent urban legend—another ‘truth’ known by ‘everyone’—holds that evolution may well be the way of the world, but one has to accept the idea with a dose of faith because the process occurs far too slowly to yield any observable result in a human life-time. Thus, we can document evolution from the fossil record and infer the process from the taxonomic relationships of living species, but we cannot see evolution on human timescales ‘in the wild.’ In fairness, we professionals must shoulder some blame for this utterly false impression about evolution's invisibility in the here and now of everyday human life. Darwin himself—although he knew and emphasized many cases of substantial changes in human time (including the development of breeds in his beloved pigeons—tended to wax eloquent about the inexorable and stately slowness of natural evolution. In a famous passage from the Origin of Species, he even devised a striking metaphor about clocks to underscore the usual invisibility:

It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and invisibly working. . . . We see nothing of theses slow changes in progress until the hand of time has marked the long lapse of ages.

“Nonetheless, the claim that evolution must be too slow to see can only rank as an urban legend—although not a completely harmless tale in this case, for our creationists incubi can then use the fallacy as an argument against evolution at any scale, and many folks take them seriously because they just ‘know’ that evolution can never be seen in the immediate here and now. In fact, a precisely opposite situation prevails: biologists have documented a veritable glut of cases for rapid and eminently measurable evolution on timescales of years and decades.”

— Stephen J Gould: "The Paradox of the Visibly Irrelevant," Natural History 106 (December 2000)

[winoman]

More Stephen Jay Gould

“The anatomical transition from reptiles to mammals is particularly well documented in the key anatomical change of jaw articulation to hearing bones. Only one bone, called the dentary, builds the mammalian jaw, while reptiles retain several small bones in the rear portion of the jaw. We can trace, through a lovely sequence of intermediates, the reduction of these small reptilian bones, and their eventual disappearance or exclusion from the jaw, including the remarkable passage of the reptilian articulation bones into the mammalian middle ear (where they became our malleus and incus, or hammer and anvil). We have even found the transitional form that creationists often proclaim inconceivable in theory—for how can jawbones become ear bones if intermediaries must live with an unhinged jaw before the new joint forms? The transitional species maintains a double jaw joint, with both the old articulation of reptiles (quadrate to articular bones) and the new connection of mammals (squamosal to dentary) already in place! Thus, one joint could be lost, with passage of its bones into the ear, while the other articulation continued to guarantee a properly hinged jaw. Still, our creationist incubi, who would never let facts spoil a favorite argument, refuse to yield, and continue to assert the absence of all transitional forms by ignoring those that have been found, and continuing to taunt us with admittedly frequent examples of absence.”

— "Hooking Leviathan by Its Past," Dinosaur in a Haystack, New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1997, pp. 360-361.



“Scientific claims must be testable; we must, in principal, be able to envision a set of observations that would render them false. Miracles cannot be judged by this criterion, as Whitcomb and Morris have admitted. But is all creationists writing merely about untestable singularities? Are arguments never made in proper scientific form? Creationists do offer some testable statements, and these are amenable to scientific analysis. Why, then, do I continue to claim that creationism isn't science? Simply because these relatively few statements have been tested and conclusively refuted.”

— "Genesis vs. Geology" In Ashley Montagu, ed., Science and Creationism, New York: Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 130-131.



“Our creationist detractors charge that evolution is an unproved and unprovable charade—a secular religion masquerading as science. They claim, above all, that evolution generates no predictions, never exposes itself to test, and therefore stands as dogma rather than disprovable science. This claim is nonsense. We make and test risky predictions all the time; our success is not dogma, but a highly probable indication of evolution's basic truth.”

— "Magnolias from Moscow," Dinosaur in a Haystack, New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1997, p. 409.



“Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.”

— "Evolution as Fact and Theory," Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, New York: W. W. Norton, 1994, p. 254.



“‘Creation science’ has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectual heritage — good teaching—than a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise?”

— "Verdict on Creationism," The Skeptical Inquirer, 1988, 12 (2): 186.

[winoman]

National Academy of Sciences (on Science and Creationism)...yeah - what do they know...(lol) -

http://books.nap.edu/html/creationism/

specifically the following should be read -

http://books.nap.edu/html/creationism/evidence.html

http://books.nap.edu/html/creationism/conclusion.html

[Anonymouse]

I must have really bothered you by stating that evolution is a theory, not a fact.

[ArmenianKid]

I must have really bothered you by stating that evolution is a theory, not a fact.

it is a theory.same with creationism. not enough proof is there to prove either one. i know theres millions of people that belive in both and i know im going to be yelled at for not calling them facts. personly i dont really belive either one, and i dont have any idea in how we got here. frankly i couldnt care less. we are here, thats i care to know.

[Anonymouse]

it is a theory.same with creationism. not enough proof is there to prove either one. i know theres millions of people that belive in both and i know im going to be yelled at for not calling them facts. personly i dont really belive either one, and i dont have any idea in how we got here. frankly i couldnt care less. we are here, thats i care to know.

Yes, the key word here is belief. That is all tha tmatters. Believe in either one, that is your choice. But don't force it down peoples throats and assert it as fact as winoman does.

[winoman]

wrong - can't either of you read or understand what you read.

dumb & dumber....

[winoman]

Again - you may choose to disbelieve in Evolution and disbelieve that the Earth is (more or less) spherical and orbits the sun - but it only proves your ignorance....

“In my field of evolutionary biology, the most prominent urban legend—another ‘truth’ known by ‘everyone’—holds that evolution may well be the way of the world, but one has to accept the idea with a dose of faith because the process occurs far too slowly to yield any observable result in a human life-time. Thus, we can document evolution from the fossil record and infer the process from the taxonomic relationships of living species, but we cannot see evolution on human timescales ‘in the wild.’ In fairness, we professionals must shoulder some blame for this utterly false impression about evolution's invisibility in the here and now of everyday human life. Darwin himself—although he knew and emphasized many cases of substantial changes in human time (including the development of breeds in his beloved pigeons—tended to wax eloquent about the inexorable and stately slowness of natural evolution. In a famous passage from the Origin of Species, he even devised a striking metaphor about clocks to underscore the usual invisibility:

It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and invisibly working. . . . We see nothing of theses slow changes in progress until the hand of time has marked the long lapse of ages.

“Nonetheless, the claim that evolution must be too slow to see can only rank as an urban legend—although not a completely harmless tale in this case, for our creationists incubi can then use the fallacy as an argument against evolution at any scale, and many folks take them seriously because they just ‘know’ that evolution can never be seen in the immediate here and now. In fact, a precisely opposite situation prevails: biologists have documented a veritable glut of cases for rapid and eminently measurable evolution on timescales of years and decades.”

— Stephen J Gould: "The Paradox of the Visibly Irrelevant," Natural History 106 (December 2000)