Evolution discussion from Time magazine

[Anonymouse]

There's no point in discussing this. There is no cure for stupidity and, therefore, the pious will always be so and will always deny what is logical and proper. Religion is outdated nonsense that people will hang on to for the purposes of mental masturbation as long as they can, regardless of how truly pathetic it is. They are choosing to give themselves the gift of feeling as though they have the answer to every question though it may seem stupid to those who understand through what eyes the world should be viewed. Let it go.

What an irony that you just posted a cartoon which was created by the zionist organization of the Christian Evangelists.

Only myopic fools assume disagreement with evolution, which is a theory, can come from only organized religious background. Evolution is no more and no less a leap of faith as is the belief in God or creation, as man's knowledge is finite, and only morons with arrogance to the nth degree believe that they and they alone have solved the riddle of ages, and that they alone possess the truth. Such people usually try to make themselves feel better or superior by trying to make themselves believe they have found answers, which usually stems from a need to feel secure in an insecure and unsolved world, all the while accusing the other side who believes in creation (or not), that somehow they are insecure or that they are trying to create answers where there were none. When you realize this you will see that evolutionists and creationists have more in common than you expected.

[winoman]

fool

When non-biologists talk about biological evolution they often confuse two different aspects of the definition. On the one hand there is the question of whether or not modern organisms have evolved from older ancestral organisms or whether modern species are continuing to change over time. On the other hand there are questions about the mechanism of the observed changes... how did evolution occur? Biologists consider the existence of biological evolution to be a fact. It can be demonstrated today and the historical evidence for its occurrence in the past is overwhelming. However, biologists readily admit that they are less certain of the exact mechanism of evolution; there are several theories of the mechanism of evolution. Stephen J. Gould has put this as well as anyone else:

In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"--part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is "only" a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science--that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."
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 don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory--natural selection--to explain the mechanism of evolution.

- Stephen J. Gould, " Evolution as Fact and Theory"; Discover, May 1981

[winoman]

Science itself must be a theory then eh?

A few words need to be said about the "theory of evolution," which most people take to mean the proposition that organisms have evolved from common ancestors. In everyday speech, "theory" often means a hypothesis or even a mere speculation. But in science, "theory" means "a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed." as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it. The theory of evolution is a body of interconnected statements about natural selection and the other processes that are thought to cause evolution, just as the atomic theory of chemistry and the Newtonian theory of mechanics are bodies of statements that describe causes of chemical and physical phenomena. In contrast, the statement that organisms have descended with modifications from common ancestors--the historical reality of evolution--is not a theory. It is a fact, as fully as the fact of the earth's revolution about the sun. Like the heliocentric solar system, evolution began as a hypothesis, and achieved "facthood" as the evidence in its favor became so strong that no knowledgeable and unbiased person could deny its reality. No biologist today would think of submitting a paper entitled "New evidence for evolution;" it simply has not been an issue for a century.

- Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2nd ed., 1986

[Anonymouse]

No matter how many times the evolutionists try to get around the corner of somehow trying to pass off a "theory" as some sort of undeniable law, the fact is, it is still conjecture, otherwise it would be a scientific law. Get over yourselves folks. You can copy and paste a thousand words of justifications of why evolutionists deserve a break in the definition, the facts don't change.

[winoman]

flail away but you offer no alternative - so why not just reject all science then?

Let me try to make crystal clear what is established beyond reasonable doubt, and what needs further study, about evolution. Evolution as a process that has always gone on in the history of the earth can be doubted only by those who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant to evidence, owing to emotional blocks or to plain bigotry. By contrast, the mechanisms that bring evolution about certainly need study and clarification. There are no alternatives to evolution as history that can withstand critical examination. Yet we are constantly learning new and important facts about evolutionary mechanisms.

- Theodosius Dobzhansky "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution", American Biology Teacher vol. 35 (March 1973) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism, J. Peter Zetterberg ed., ORYX Press, Phoenix AZ 1983

[winoman]

And in fact a Scientific Theory has a bit more to it then a Law

Physical laws are distinguished from scientific theories by their simplicity. Scientific theories are generally more complex than laws; they have many component parts, and are more likely to be changed as the body of available experimental data and analysis develops. This is because a physical law is strictly empirical. It is a summary observation of things as they are. A theory is model that accounts for the observation, explains it, relates it to other observations, and makes testable predictions based upon it. Simply stated, while a law notes that something happens, a theory attempts to deal with why or how it happens.

[Anonymouse]

so why not just reject all science then?

Sure, why not? But let's not forget, evolution is not all science, nor is science all of evolution. Are we going to go back to defining what "science" means again?

[One-Way]

When my family went out for dinner on my birthday, my dad told me he read this and he was talking to us about it. I don't believe in evolution and I didn't know he did. I was like, "Dad. You really think we were once monkeys?" Then I made a racist joke. Hahahahaha.

[Anonymouse]

Then I made a racist joke. Hahahahaha.

Good man. A truly enlightened person does not adhere to pc boundaries of what is appropriate and what isn't, and his humor will go beyond those. Racial/ethnic jokes are some of the funniest. Of course you will see that winoman typifies exactly what we mean when we talk about guilty white liberals.

[Կարմիր Բ]

evolution is not all science, nor is science all of evolution.

The optic prism from which you perceive facts is touching.

Regardless whether the theory of Evolution is true or false, any reasonable person has the ability to comprehend that it is impossible for a living organism to be created from mud,as the myth,not theory, of creationism states.

Putting in the same level the theory of Evolution and the mythical interpretation ,from a bunch of shepherds in the desert 4000 thousands years ago, regarding the creation of the universe, is merely ridiculous.