What are the dumbest attempts to find fault in the theory of evolution you've heard?

The mechanism to change was already there, though, right? Human beings didn't create the capacity for the animal to change in this way, we just took advantage of it.

So far I hope that this makes sense.

 

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That great I as a evolutionist never thought of homosexuality as desirable... hum perhaps as a means of population control?

Again I think the problem is that many believe evolution discredits their religion, this is not true and religion and science can be parallel.

 

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And that's why I ask you to remit probability of occurance calculations before you claim that this is the way evolution took place. ....selective breeding was not already there.....we don't know exactly how breeding will take place, actually, I was watching discovery channel and most often than not, the underdog is the one that end up surviving because it's low profile and end up winning the mating game. No theory can even explain that.... Humans are trying to fit nature in a cookie cutter template and deregulate nature. The potential for making the mistakes exist, and that's why our research flourishes.

 

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It's voodoo science, and the burden of proof doesn't fall on me, it falls on the founders of such voodoo. Lack of explanation doesn't make the existing voodoo a reality. It only makes it a convineance.

First of all, to state that evolutional theory is ‘voodoo science’ shows complete ignorance to the subject. Don’t make statements about things in which you have absolutely no understanding.

Secondly, yes the burden of proof DOES fall on you to back up YOUR ignorant statement.

 

And which evolution theory threw your sorry sarcastic ass in the middle of this serious discussion....It aint selective breeding, cause I won't breed with you if you were the last man alive.

 

*Fallacy detector alarm goes off*

detected fallacy "Strawman"
Details:

Flores please counter (Q) statement when replying to him and not another persons.

 

This remark is intentionally shortsighted. If a less successful form of an organism consistently wins the "mating game" that means it's not a less successful form because this is how success is measured.

Whereas it is true that we can't claim more than a theoretical approximation of the truth, I reject your assertion that we shouldn't try because it's too hard.

Wholesale denial of an idea is not helpful. If you don't like evolutionary theory then provide a workable alternative, don't stick your head in the sand. I understand if you don't like big E Evolutionary Theory, because it bites off more than it can chew, but claiming that selective pressure is a human invention is a falsehood, since you just mentioned reproductive success in your own post.

 

Explain? your statement could be taken as racist, which is the implication of the words. Explain?

 

This discussion had gotten slightly out of hand.

Let me first state that evolution is nothing like voodoo science. As you might have seen in the evolution: time for a change thread. Evolution is a great stimulus of biological sciences.

The crosstalk between creationists and popular versions of evolution creates the illusion that evolution is not scientific.

In reality evolution has been the backbone of biology for more than 150 years. It is silly to think that creation theory or any of its derivatives could take its place. The reason for this is simple. Evolution theory creates (scientific) questions! And that is what science is all about. Creationism answers questions (in a very unsatisfactory way i might mention).

 

I don't know where you get "voodoo science" from me suggesting you look at evolution in action in the litteral sense instead of reading dictionary definitions and assuming you have the ammo required for a real discussion on the topic.

What i mean is look at the breeding habits in nature, it is obvious there is a naturally selective breeding program for each species similar to the breeding programs we subject domestic animals to, only the culling and selecting is done by circumstance and natural politics unique to whichever species it is.
You can't see the evolution happen obviously, that takes a long time, but you can see how it happens just by looking at the behaviour of the other animals on this planet. I suggest doing that more than reading a biology text book because you can actually learn it and understand it for yourself instead of having it told to you. Which just doesn't work for some people(me included).

 

Flores:
"I don't recall writing a book about my beliefs, claiming it a scientific revolution, or recieving any awards because of it. I don't even recall ever visiting a religious congregation or building.

Is that what your evolution education teaches you, to assume and judge people and decoy serious discussions."

I have little evolution education. And I apologised for jumping in like this.

You may not have written a book about your beliefs, but with regard to religion, plenty of others have. They then expect others to believe their books. At the very least, what is different about what you are doing here with regards to evolution?
Perhaps you might like to consider the difference between a scientifi revolution and a religious one. One requires you to believe, the other offers you the evidence and gives you the chance to look it over, moreover, it is likely that you will get the same results from different people of many different backgrounds, and even religions.
So, is your religion personal to you? In that case, what has it got to do with everyone else on the planet?

 

(Q) said:

Actually (Q), sad as it may seem, the burden of proof doesn't fall upon Flores but rather on us, since we're trying to support a scientific theory and Flores is only saying that s/he doesn't believe it.

When person 1 says "I don't know" and person 2 says "It is thus", it falls to person 2 to show that it is thus, not to person 1 to show that it is not. (If it's the other way around then we get stuck trying to disprove the existence of psychic surgery and El Chupacabras; one of the most important aspects of knowledge is that disproof is almost impossible, so all claims gain validity. This is not what we want.)

This is why I attempted to explain (small e) evolutionary theory from first principles. My complaint about Flores is not about the burden of proof, but the fact that s/he is being intentionally inconsistent in her expression of such facts as we know.

 

But it's impossible to argue that something is true when you're given no conditions as to when it can be considered true.

 

If you aren't given any conditions then you can use whichever ones seem most reasonable; if the other person you're arguing with won't play ball, then they're the one being irresponsible.

That's why I started out from simple concepts in my discussion with Flores; it turns out that s/he doesn't believe in selective breeding, even though there are observed examples where selective pressure produced a drastic change in a population within the range of fifty years, and without intentional intervention by humans: the peppered moth example, which you've probably already heard a million times.

As a result, we've found out where the two of us break away from one another on evolution - not the final idea, but one of the premises, the concept characterised by selective breeding.

I believe that selective breeding was an obvious, useful, and predictable enough principle that humans came upon the concept of using it to produce organisms better suited to their uses. This was taking advantage of a natural phenomenon. It's not 100% predictable because it's a game of incomplete information, but then nothing is 100% predictable so that's hardly a criticism.

Flores believes that the unpredictable nature of selection makes its results too random to be comprehended by means of rules. As a result s/he believes that it cannot function as a premise for evolutionary theory.

Until we can work out this difference, we needn't bother discussing evolutionary theory with one another because we still disagree on one of its basic components. If we never come to an agreement on selective breeding we will never come to an agreement on evolution.


Now, because I see the peppered moth example as demonstrating that a population can respond adaptively in a comprehensible manner, I am inclined to dismiss Flores' assertions about selective breeding as being made in (a now intentional) ignorance of accepted evidence. So where does this leave us?

I have a good reason to believe that Flores' views on selective breeding are wrong.

Flores still feels that s/he is right and so we still cannot discuss evolutionary theory because of our disagreement.

This doesn't paralyze me into waiting for Flores' assent. I can continue with my discussion and address other objections (including objections from Flores on other subjects more basic than evolutionary theory) without worrying about this issue anymore unless a more material objection is raised concerning selective breeding.

That's how it works.

 

Oh, and evolution isn't "true", it's a description of a process that is more or less accurate. The general description will probably differ from the expression of the real world in trivial ways, or with exceptions to the rule... our intention is to refine our description of the process, hopefully to be more accurate.

Theories are never "true". That's life. By the same token, nothing else is true either.

 

Or the other one is known not to post during evening hours and holidays, and news goes, yesterday was Veterans day. Are you as hasty making decision about science and their validity like you are hasty about assuming things about people. Didn't they teach you in biology 101 that ASSUME means Making an ASS out YOU and not ME.

Chill my friend, many many billions lived and died without knowing whether evolution theory is true or not, and thus your quest for confirming evolution can not be demonstrated to be a dire or important one. Your priorities are so mixed up, your patience is thin, and your knowledge is simple and diluted. This is the recipe for disaster.

The answer is baby steps my dear.....Take baby tiny little steps....

Selective breeding does not happen in nature. They are conducted under overly managed conditions in laboratories. There is no proof that selective breeding ever took place in nature, and thus it's outcome can not be used to assert that evolution does indeed take place in nature.

Why do we hear about that a million times, use other species that represent man for instance. You can't draw general conclusions based on such a specific example. That's called insane extrapolation.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks...

Agree.....I don't ask you to stop researching though, just stop attesting that this is the most INFALIABLE ACCURATE theory.

Incline all you want, you are making a big mistake extrapolating moon behavior based on moth population...It's a free world though, so feel free to base your assertion on a very very specific example.

You are mistaken my dear, just like you are mistaken about the Moth being a representative of the entire living species. As I said, lack of answers on your part is not a good reason that the one answer that you have adopted is correct. It's a sign of trying to achieve convineance.

 

Spoken like a true scientist, and the answer to all your questions is embedded in your post.

Evolution is not a grand theory of creation and that makes it simple and easier to apply to the specifics of the subject. Let me try to explain what i mean. I'm a hydrologist and I can say that drainage area, rainfall, and width of stream are great indicators for my field. I can say that there exist a huge relation between the amount of rainfall and the width of stream, that being, "streams recieving more rain are generally wider". This statement is incorrect, and while some streams exhibit such behavior, others don't. Some streams are rocky, while others are clayly, others are sandy, other entrench easily, while others riffle and pool. The biological and chemical conditions of the streams also play a big role in establishing it's characteristics. Just like human science, streams are so complex morphologically speaking. It's a seamless web of interconnected disciplines that will never be understood on a grand scale....and that explains why creationist POV is useless to you. I agree it's useless, but I don't agree that it's wrong. Creationists POV is correct, just unpractical to use at the decipline level.

Neverthless, the complexity and lack of grand theory, make up for a huge potential to research streams, biology, and human sciences. Small scale theories like evolution and others emerge, but any attempt to try to use such knowledge to explain the grand theory behind the world, like evolutionist try to do is a BIG FAT LIE, just like physicist are lying when they thing that BIG BANG explains everything, or quantum people lie when they think that randomness is the key, or Einstien lie when he think that relativity is the answer for all.

 

Creationism or Evolution?

A: Both.

I don't believe that everything evolved from just one original organism. I think unique single celled organisms were originally formed (or created) wherever there had been interaction between water and soil, which is pretty much everywhere.

These billions of organisms, each absolutely unique to their environments, had the capacity to adapt and evolve through different and changing conditions and so, over many millions of years, some surviving organisms merely adapted, evolving in small ways, while others gave birth to lines of differing species, probably because there was a need for it according to the local environment.

My previous point is proved by the fact that there are species of animal that have hardly changed at all, even after millions of years, while other species are relatively young.

Now, as far as what Actually Triggered, the interaction between water and soil to bring about a living organism out of the inanimate elements in the first place (seemingly a true miracle)? That is anybody's guess, but my bet is on a certain type of Neutrino. I've described a fuller theory of this on another thread somewhere.

 

Actually (Q), sad as it may seem, the burden of proof doesn't fall upon Flores but rather on us, since we're trying to support a scientific theory and Flores is only saying that s/he doesn't believe it.

Agreed. However, Flores does not know the first thing about evolution or any other subject that does not entail her religious beliefs. Her responses are silly in the extreme.

When person 1 says "I don't know" and person 2 says "It is thus", it falls to person 2 to show that it is thus, not to person 1 to show that it is not.

Again, agreed. But Flores never says, “I don’t know” – instead, without any forethought, she bleats out the first ridiculous notion that enters her pea brain, and continues to hold that notion as the truth, regardless of any lack of consistency, relevance or accuracy she exhibits from post to post.

My complaint about Flores is not about the burden of proof, but the fact that s/he is being intentionally inconsistent in her expression of such facts as we know.

I doubt it is intentional – most likely it is a lack of education coupled with a religiously brain-washed worldview.

 

I hate to bring it to you, but everything I do is very intentional including me calling you a sorry ass case of how "evolution went wrong".