RBH

Andrew wroteTo keep things more or less on track, would Andrew be so kind as to give us his distinction between micro- and macro-evolution? Just so we have stable goalposts.

And I note that Andrew did not address my remark about Christians, including evangelical Christians, who also accept that evolution is the best scientific account of the diversity of life on earth. How does Andrew reconcile that with his claim that "materialist philosophy" is what drives scientists to accept that evolutionary processes is what account for "macroevolution"?

RBH

Wounded King

Actually you don't even seem to be doing that. You raised a few questions and when they were addressed you either dismissed their source as biased, althought the extracts you presented only seemed biased towards scientific methodology, or seemed to be unable to actually understand the answers that you were given. If you can't understand the evidence about beneficial mutations that Roland 98 presented then you might wish to learn quite a bit more about biology in general and evolutionary biology in particular before you start claiming to have found shortcomings with it. This was not a simulation it was an observed example of a beneficial mutaton arising in bacterial cultures.

TTFN,

WK

Viti

It means that in labaratory conditions living organisms evolved a way to metabolize a synthetic material, nylon, by introducing it as the only source of certain elements they needed to live.

How can you expect to understand complex evolutionary theory if you won't even try to understand a single study?


Science has to work from that angle, otherwise every question would be answered with Goddidit and nobody would delve an further.


It's simply the best explanation we currently have. If an alternative explanation was posited and stood up to questioning and experiementation and observation as well as various aspects of evollutionary theory has, then science would change its position.

Xrikcus

What I don't understand at all is people saying the evidence for evolution is meagre so that it's wrong to assume it's right, and then saying that a theological explanation is better, that's a simple contradiction. Science doesn't say outright that religious explanations are wrong, what they are though is meaningless. We could say that evlution is the way life got to the state it is in, it explains a lot, it predicts a lot. When I say meaningless I mean that maybe God is pushing development of animals the way they are going, but in saying so it doesn't add anything to the process, it can be explained without God, so saying God is helping means nothing, and just dissuades further research into the process.


It's not a matter of some bizarre materialistic philosophy, it's simply a matter of explaining things in terms we as a society can understand, and developing that understanding over time. Assumptions are part of what makes science different from religion.


I once made the mistake of accusing someone of speaking nonsense when they used those terms without realising that they were actually commonly used in the scientific community - although frankly I don't see them as having any benefit. I would argue that someone who says microevolution is proven but macroevolution is just based on assumption should explain to me why the same process cannot give macroevolutionary effects. It's almost a shame they are used at all, it gives creationists something to claim against.

RBH

Yup, but they're used in several senses, and often vaguely and ambiguously by creationists, so I'd like Andrew to tell us what he means by them so we can nail the goalposts to the turf early in this discussion.

RBH

HRG

Why should it be ? It is part of the definition of science. I suspect you missed the qualification "methodological" somewhere.
No, but science can only deal with naturalistic explanations. They are the only testable ones.
Sure, and my cat could have created the universe Last Thursday. If so, this is not a matter science can investigate.
Because we have observed intelligent beings creating computers.
Why do you assume a priori that life was not naturalistically caused, or that the universe had a cause ? Do we have any independent objective evidence of a being or beings which has/have the power and the inclination to create life or the universe ?
Stating the truth is not "grinding an axe". Truth is an absolute defense against a charge of slander.

Can you present another "model of biological development that is scientific and consistent with the facts" ?
Ridiculous. Things do not behave differently when humans intervene - unless you claim we can do miracles. Other modifications of carbon transform into diamonds under high pressure temperature, whether these conditions are achieved in a laboratory or deep down in a mine.
I believe that the regularities of the universe exists because there are no intermeddling gods which could disturb them. Neither of us can present any observations in support of our respective beliefs.
Sure - we investigate the methods and motivations by resp. for which these things were made based on our knowledge of what humans can and will do.

Actually this line is dangerous for the ID view, because the universe and life look quite unlike human artifacts - and humans are the only intelligent designers we know of, thus our artifacts are the only basis of comparison.
Why do you think that evolution with its various mechanisms cannot explain the variety of species ?

Regards, HRG.

Roland98

Well, yes. Did you try to look any of it up? Here is the scoop. Nylon obviously is not a naturally-occurring material. It was first developed in the 1930s or so. Fast-forward about 50ish years later, and it was discovered that there were naturally-occurring bacteria which could degrade nylon (found in wastewater, not surprisingly, around nylon plants). What they did in this paper was examine this phenomenon experimentally and genetically in Pseudomonas.


It means that simply using mutation followed by natural selection, bacteria were found that had a de novo (new) mutation allowing them to use nylon as a nutrient source, which their ancestors had been unable to degrade. Translation: new function that didn't exist before in these particular bacteria. ==beneficial mutation, which you said you were skeptical of.

Plognark

Slamming Evolution over your own lack of comprehension does nothing to disprove it either.

The "alternative theories" are often brought up because of the basic functioning of the scientific method. If someone comes up with a better, more accurate, more consistent hypothesis that can be tested, scientists would probably can evolution rather quickly. Until then it's the best theoretical model we have for observed reality.

Sven

These paragraphs sound like if you had problems with the theory of evolution, which explains the available evidence by mutations+selection (etc.). I think these problems have been dealt with quite extensively in this thread.

In contrast, this paragraph sounds if you had problems with the evidence for "macroevolution" (I assume you mean common descent) itself.
May I ask if you know that these are two separate questions? If you know that the observation of "microevolution" is not the only reason why biologists think that we have a common ancestor? May I ask if you visited the "29+ evidences for macroevolution" article already linked to earlier?

Naked Ape

Perhaps this is fodder for another thread, but here goes...

Andrew_theist,
perhaps you can explain why the primate eye design (with the optic nerve's wiring running in from of the retina, creating a blind spot ) is more intelligent that the cephalopod eye design (with the optic nerve's wiring running behind the retina, creating blind spot free vision ).

It would seem that god likes squid better that people, if we take the quality of the eye design as an indicator.

Cheers,

Naked Ape