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100 Reasons Why Evolution Is Stupid (Part 1 of 11)

David Henson said:
Yeah, right, and your explanation is, allegedly, that something complex could just happen so long as it isn't attributed to a creator.
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I have not followed this thread, but this quote here clearly shows me that you do not understand evolution by natural selection at all, and you are obviously disregarding an overwhelming body of evidence which supports it.
 
Radrook said:
But there we go again! An ID need not be considered a god nor does its methods need involve the supernatural. There is nothing in the definition fan ID that requires it. many things that humans do now would be considered supernatural by our ancient ancestors. Yet to us they would simply be technological accomplishments.,


Also, who or what or where the ID came or its location in existence is irrelevant to the detection of ID in nature. In short, one doesn't have to know everything about the builders of a machine in order to conclude that the machine is a product of intelligent design.
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Didn't I already address this? You, like every IDer I've seen who brings up the alien hypothesis, fails to address where the aliens could have come from. Is it intelligent design all the way up the tree? What came first?

I don't deny that a sufficiently advanced technology could intelligently design a species (more or less like we've done with plants and animals we domesticated), but there would always need to be a parent intelligence that wasn't intelligently designed.

And, to be perfectly honest, if we were intelligently designed, by gods or aliens, they did a lousy job. At least the aliens have the excuse of being fallible, right?
 
SOdhner said:
Is it possible that the confusion here is one of language? Are you possibly not fluent in English? That might explain some of your replies.
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No, I'm simply point out I don't particularly mind if you come to that conclusion. It's really not my problem.
 
David Henson said:
Yeah, right, and your explanation is, allegedly, that something complex could just happen so long as it isn't attributed to a creator.
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No scientific theory has ever ended with anything remotely similar to 'as long as it isn't attributed to a creator'. Scientific theories don't address a creator, because one is not needed as part of the theory. Theories are meant to be as simple as possible, while explaining observations and making predictions.

If adding a god to a scientific theory does not change the predictions being made and does not increase its 'fit' to observation, then it simply does not get added on. And why should it?

We may as well add a cookie recipe on the end of super string theory.
 
excaza said:
Quote:
While the finches do show change over time in response to environmental factors-hence natural selection-the change is reversible! The size and shape of their beaks will vary slightly depending if the year is wet or dry (varying the size of seeds produced) and revert back when the conditions reverse. There is no directional change.
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This logic is awful. How is that evidence against natural selection? The capacity for the bird's beak to 'change' based on the season is a significant advantage over birds whose beaks don't change. Sounds like natural selection to me.
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Somebody may have already noted this, but actually, I don't think it's the same birds changing. As I recall, the observation is that average beak length is variable in the population, but each individual bird's beak stays the same.

In dry seasons, the birds with the wet-adapted beaks die off in greater numbers, leaving the overall population with a certain average beak length better adapted to dry weather, but with some wet-adapted survivors who also pass on their genes.

When the weather turns wet, the dry-adapated ones die off in greater numbers, since their beaks are now mal-adapted for wet weather, and the wet-adapted ones survive in greater numbers, changing the average beak length of the flock.

It's a perfect example of natural selection in action, but it doesn't create any progressive change over time because there's no progressive change in the environment. Some slightly mal-adapted birds can still survive for a season or two.

If the environment got drier each year compared to the year before and after a while stayed very dry, the birds with the best-adapted beaks would survive in greater and greater numbers. You'd gradually see the genetic material that produced the poorly-adapted beaks become bred out (all else being equal), until you had "pure-bred" birds who only produced offspring with beaks adapted to dry weather.
 
Robert Oz said:
It is assuming that 12 o'clock is the starting point of the diversification.

Like this:

12 can breed with 1 and vice versa;
1 can breed with 2 and vice versa;
2 can breed with 3 and vice versa;
3 can breed with 4 and vice versa;
4 can breed with 5 and vice versa;
5 can breed with 6 and vice versa;
6 can breed with 7 and vice versa;
7 can breed with 8 and vice versa;
8 can breed with 9 and vice versa;
9 can breed with 10 and vice versa;
10 can breed with 11 and vice versa; BUT
11 cannot breed with 12 and vice versa.

11 and 12 are by definition, different species. But at what point along the path does this macro-evolution occur? Now replace this geographic problem with a time problem and the absurdity of saying something as ridiculous as a dog giving birth to an ear of corn becomes clear.
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Sure, I understand all that. I just thought that... somebody [dammit, I've lost the post I was replying to back somewhere in this thread] was saying that 12 can breed with 1 but not vice-versa, 1 can breed with 2 but not vice-versa, and so on around the path. This, of course, would make no sense. But perhaps I misunderstood that person's point...
 
Vorticity said:
Sure, I understand all that. I just thought that... somebody [dammit, I've lost the post I was replying to back somewhere in this thread] was saying that 12 can breed with 1 but not vice-versa, 1 can breed with 2 but not vice-versa, and so on around the path. This, of course, would make no sense. But perhaps I misunderstood that person's point...
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Yeah, I think that was me. I used the terms 'clock-wise' and 'anti-clockwise' without realising that it comes across as confusing. My bad.
 
David Henson said:
Super human? God?
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The Bible says we're made in god's image and you seem to think that the designer uses human methods just a little more advanced so yes it looks to me like your god is a super human.
 
Lucian said:
I'm trying to clarify something. It seems to me that in the category of Stuff That's Wrong with Science, we have these two criticisms:

1. Science keeps changing. First, scientists said X was true. Ten years later, they changed their minds and said Y was true. How can we trust science when it keeps changing?

2. Science is dogmatic. When someone comes along and says, "Hey, Y isn't true after all: Q is true," scientists just point and laugh. If you go against the "religion" of science by proclaiming Q, you'll be ridiculed and denied tenure.

To summarize, science keeps changing and it is resistant to change. Have I got that right? There's something niggling at the back of my brain; something seems wrong, but I can't quite put my finger on what...
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Science is only dogmatic about Eviloution because that allows us to be guilt free sinners.:mad:
 
temporalillusion said:
Lol, logical fallacies only make sense and are used by atheists.

THAT explains why religion is the way it is then.
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Logic is probably one of the many things that fall under the all-encompassing theory of evolution; therefore it's wrong, right?
 
Lucian said:
I'm trying to clarify something. It seems to me that in the category of Stuff That's Wrong with Science, we have these two criticisms:

1. Science keeps changing. First, scientists said X was true. Ten years later, they changed their minds and said Y was true. How can we trust science when it keeps changing?

2. Science is dogmatic. When someone comes along and says, "Hey, Y isn't true after all: Q is true," scientists just point and laugh. If you go against the "religion" of science by proclaiming Q, you'll be ridiculed and denied tenure.

To summarize, science keeps changing and it is resistant to change. Have I got that right? There's something niggling at the back of my brain; something seems wrong, but I can't quite put my finger on what...
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There's nothing wrong with "change". It's just another word for "progress".

What's good about the scientific method is precisely that it permits "science to change" when warranted. It is not generally the case that scientists say "X is true", then that "Y is true". It is more like the explanation of a phenomenon is improved so that we now have "X-prime" is true because it is more accurate, or includes more of what used to be exceptional cases. Of course there are examples like "phlogiston" and "ether".

Pretty much everyone assumed there had to be "ether", then Michelson and Morley set about to prove that it existed. They were surprised to find that it didn't. It is a beautiful example of a failed experiment which actually caused a tremendous advancement in physics.

Newton to Einstein is a good example of an improvement on a theory. No one is saying that Newton was completely wrong, just that Einstein's ideas permitted a broader view of the picture, which is a good thing.

As for "science is dogmatic". That is just not the way a scientist looks at things. He would instead look to the theory for help when confronted with an anomaly. He would rely on the subtleties of theory to bail him out, not feel like he must conform to the claims. It's been said many times here, if he really finds a hole in the theory's arguments, and can prove it, he's on his way to fame.
 
elbe said:
Didn't I already address this? You, like every IDer I've seen who brings up the alien hypothesis, fails to address where the aliens could have come from. Is it intelligent design all the way up the tree? What came first?

I don't deny that a sufficiently advanced technology could intelligently design a species (more or less like we've done with plants and animals we domesticated), but there would always need to be a parent intelligence that wasn't intelligently designed.

And, to be perfectly honest, if we were intelligently designed, by gods or aliens, they did a lousy job. At least the aliens have the excuse of being fallible, right?
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The sky-hook* is one problem, another is why those high-tech aliens made such an effort to make their design consistent with evolution theory.

Unless one limits the aliens to an alternative to abiogenesis on earth.


*Or, it is aliens all the way up.
 
David Henson said:
In my own words, How am I wrong?

ETA: This is what I originally said.

"A theory means, you have told me, just guessing what might have happened by observing the evidence."
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:rolleyes: No, I meant, who is the 'you' that gave you that definition of what a scientific theory is.
 
David Henson said:
No. It wouldn't be surprising at all if the video were wrong, what surprises me is, not so much that none of you can explain why it might be wrong but that the possibility that it (the video's questioning of the Big Bang) could be right simply by default is unacceptable to you even though you can't state for a certainty anything else.
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You are the one that alleged it as fact. Yet, you demand we provide the evidence.

Please start with something, anything to link Hovind's fantastical straw man to actual current scientific theory. If that connection cannot be established, then your whole premise collapses as baseless, and then what is left to discuss?
 
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Olowkow said:
There's nothing wrong with "change". It's just another word for "progress".

What's good about the scientific method is precisely that it permits "science to change" when warranted. It is not generally the case that scientists say "X is true", then that "Y is true". It is more like the explanation of a phenomenon is improved so that we now have "X-prime" is true because it is more accurate, or includes more of what used to be exceptional cases. Of course there are examples like "phlogiston" and "ether".

Pretty much everyone assumed there had to be "ether", then Michelson and Morley set about to prove that it existed. They were surprised to find that it didn't. It is a beautiful example of a failed experiment which actually caused a tremendous advancement in physics.

Newton to Einstein is a good example of an improvement on a theory. No one is saying that Newton was completely wrong, just that Einstein's ideas permitted a broader view of the picture, which is a good thing.

As for "science is dogmatic". That is just not the way a scientist looks at things. He would instead look to the theory for help when confronted with an anomaly. He would rely on the subtleties of theory to bail him out, not feel like he must conform to the claims. It's been said many times here, if he really finds a hole in the theory's arguments, and can prove it, he's on his way to fame.
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Hmmm, perhaps I should have used a smilie. It just seems to me that many evolution deniers manage to criticize science both for changing and for not changing.
 
Olowkow said:
Pretty much everyone assumed there had to be "ether", then Michelson and Morley set about to prove that it existed. They were surprised to find that it didn't. It is a beautiful example of a failed experiment which actually caused a tremendous advancement in physics.
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If I may be pedantic for a moment, I don't consider the Michelson-Morley to be a failed experiment. The hypothesis failed spectacularly, the experiment worked just fine.

An experiment should provide data that supports or falsifies a hypothesis; as long as it does one or the other, the experiment is a success. An experiment fails (and many do) when it doesn't provide data that's useful for validating a hypothesis.

For instance, if I'm experimenting to see if a particular fertilizer improves my lawn, and on day 2 I accidently flood the lawn, then the experiment has failed; I can't tell whether the fertilizer helped or not. OTOH, if everything went smoothly and the fertilized patch of lawn died, then the experiment was a success but the "this fertilizer can improve my lawn" hypothesis has been weakened.
 
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