Evolution and a supreme being.

Guill wrote: »

I love this aul' arguement, keeps me up many a night with a few friends and some beer, wine, whiskey and port. Bottom line of everything is that nobody knows anything. Everything is a theory and its up to you what to believe. Personally I believe that religion is a scam. I believe in evolution. I believe in the big bang. I believe in gravity.

Basically I believe in things that can be measured or rationally theorised.

"Everything is a theory and its up to you what to believe"

Well, the notion of a spherical earth is a theory that we know to be fact. You're confusing "theory" with "hypothesis". Evolution is a theory that has been proven fact time and time again by evidence. You can't be democratic about these sort of theories.

mickrock wrote: »

If it's not completely random and directionless does that imply that there is a certain intelligence inherent in the process?

Thus speaks someone who doesn't actually understand what the theory of evolution states.

Robdude wrote: »

God creates man
Man creates theory

Which god do you mean? My money is on Odin. :rolleyes:

Grand_Rajnah wrote: »

Science has however, shown how man was created, ie evolution.

You can argue that it was all overseen by some mythical being till your blue in the face, but the evidence supports evolution, and how it all originated from the big bang.

I'm not gonna pretend that I know all there is to know about darwanism, or that I can fully explain the origin of life on this planet, but this much I'm sure of; it wasn't down to a god.

Absolutely - scientific evidence supports your claims. I'm not refuting that for a second.

I'm saying the best scientific minds have a long history of being wrong....

http://top5s.net/index.php/2012/04/top-5-debunked-scientific-beliefs-of-the-past/
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-famous-scientific-theories-that-turned-out-to-be-wrong.php
http://listverse.com/2008/04/09/top-10-scientific-frauds-and-hoaxes/
http://www.cracked.com/article_18822_5-famous-scientists-dismissed-as-morons-in-their-time.html

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
-- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
-- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
"But what ... is it good for?"
-- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968,commenting on the microchip.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."
-- Western Union internal memo, 1876.
"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
-- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible."
-- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face not Gary Cooper."
-- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."
"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make."
-- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields'Cookies.
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
-- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

Many of our most well known scientists were also crazy by most standards and often, just plain wrong.

And these are big, huge things. How many lessor known drugs and chemicals have been passed off as safe, only to be declared horribly dangerous a few short years or decades later? How many lessor known scientific theories have been accepted and then rejected later by the community. And the opposite happens just as often - scientists who are RIGHT - but not popular and don't have the right friends - get laughed at and ridiculed - BY THE BEST SCIENTIFIC MINDS OF THE TIME - only to be declared brilliant years after their death.

So yeah - you are right. There is plenty of scientific evidence of a lot of things. There was a lot of scientific evidence that explained how the shape of my head would make me a criminal too - and if we were having this conversation 100 years ago - lots of scientists could throw around a lot of big words and theories and look down their nose at me for not being 'properly educated'.

But they'd still be wrong.

Robdude wrote: »

Except science has shown that man hasn't always existed. Man can't create man. And without the existence of man, man can't create God.

Great point. All we need to do now is explain who created the gods and you're half way to explaining your position. Who created Thor? Who created Zeus? Who created Yaweh? Who created Zoroaster?

Robdude wrote: »

Absolutely - scientific evidence supports your claims. I'm not refuting that for a second.

I'm saying the best scientific minds have a long history of being wrong....

http://top5s.net/index.php/2012/04/top-5-debunked-scientific-beliefs-of-the-past/
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-famous-scientific-theories-that-turned-out-to-be-wrong.php
http://listverse.com/2008/04/09/top-10-scientific-frauds-and-hoaxes/
http://www.cracked.com/article_18822_5-famous-scientists-dismissed-as-morons-in-their-time.html

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
-- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

I think you'll find this scientist was actually correct.

Robdude wrote: »

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face not Gary Cooper."
-- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

To be fair, I doubt even Gary Cooper would have claimed that he was one of 'the best scientific minds'.

Guill wrote: »

Everything is theory, like theory of reletivity, theory of gravity, theory of evolution. If you cut science back to the bare bones everything is a theory, some are accepted a fact and become the paradigm. A true scientist will understand this.


Don't answer the questions, question the answers.

Yes and some theories are more fact than others. There's a scale between fact and hypothesis. The spherical Earth theory can easily be proven fact if I went up into a spaceship and viewed Earth from a distance. There isn't even the slightest possibility of the flat Earth theory being correct. Spherical Earth theory is more fact than, say, the theory of relatively which may or may not be continuously refined to include extra unknown parameters.

partyatmygaff wrote: »

The second law of thermodynamics would imply that there is an outside force that organised things at some point.

This isn't the whole "order from disorder goes against the concept of entropy" thing, is it? I've nothing more than a rudimentary knowledge of physics but it would proabably be wise to ask a few questuions on physics forum before you go along with this one, as you're walking in the illustrious presence of guys who claim that men used to ride around on dinosaurs.

mickrock wrote: »

The last sentence doesn't make any sense.

Why do you call the imitated process intelligent design but the original process from which it's imitated is not?

Well take a common example. The evolution of humans is not intelligent design, but humans can produce intelligent design. This is what I mean by non-intelligent design being the ultimate source of intelligent design.

Pushtrak wrote: »

Luckily, Ireland doesn't have many young earth creationists. Still seems to be a lot of evolution deniers. See, the problem I have whenever I see "Intelligent Design" mentioned it is generally by those who'd advocate young earth, 6 day creation, Adam and Eve, no evolution. And if that was reality, that would be intelligent design.

But that is not reality. Instead, we know that humanity got to this point by the process of evolution. That life began with abiogenesis. That the planets are as they are due to big bang cosmology. If any of these steps, you stopped and said "We don't know that..." substitute "I" for we, and go off and learn about the particulars on whichever one you do not know enough on.

For Big Bang, I would recommend reading the book Big Bang by Simon Singh for starters. Great book. For evolution, well, there you could read some of Dawkins material. For abiogenesis, I don't really have good reading material to suggest here. I know what I know here due to videos on the subject. I'll get some links to great videos on these subjects and provide them in another post. Will take a bit to gather up the links.

Anyway, back to intelligent design... The only reason an intelligent designer is even brought in to the discussion is because there was the big bang, and people will ponder about what came before the big bang? Well, time started out at the big bang, so it isn't a sensible question. There is a hypothesis about the multiverse, but I don't feel in any way comfortable about the veracity about it. I know next to nothing on it, so I am not leaning one way or the other on the matter.

Anyway, we are to suppose that this intelligent designer should it exist created the universe 13.7 billion years ago, the planet is mid 4 to 5 billion years old. So, that's quite a while already. Then, add in the fact that homo sapien has been as it currently is for 100,000 years. That is a very small amount of the time for us to be as we are. Certainly no deity of an interventionist nature seems to be logical in light of what is seen of reality. Some would say the universe is fine tuned for life. Nonsense. Considering how there are [Carl Sagn voice]billions upon billions[/Carl Sagan voice] that are most certainly quite inhospitable, and we managed to live on this one.. It all screams God of the Gaps.

This doesn't answer mickrock's question to me.

BTW, I'm no advocate of the intelligent design hypothesis - I just like the phase "intelligent design".

Tonyandthewhale wrote: »

Lol. So you reject the theory of evolution (despite the existence of observable evidence to support the theory and over a century of stringent research and testing aimed at debunking it) on the basis that sometimes people are wrong. Thing is, most of your examples of when 'great scientific minds' were wrong listed above are examples of people not familiar with some new technology, being presented with such technology and making pesimistic predictions about it. None of the above are examples of flaws in the scientific process.

The theory of evolution is not about someone making a guess at how the career of the Beatles or some cookie manufacturer is going to turn out and being wrong. The theory of evolutions is a theory based on observations which led to a hypothesis being developed and then objectively tested with the INTENTION OF DISPROVING IT. It was then re-tested, and re-tested again and again and research was carried out to explain the findings of these tests and hypotheses were developed from this research and these hypotheses were tested and researched and so on and so on. Not the approach taken by Gary Cooper by any means.

Even if you take a slightly more scientific example of mere humans being wrong. You said 100 years ago the shape of your skull might be used to determine whether or not you are a criminal. This is the 'science' of phrenology (actually a pseudoscience since proper scientific processes weren't followed). In this case a hypothesis was developed that the shape of the skull reflected aspects of character and intellect. However, due to the lack of technology relating to brain scanning and standardised personality tests and the over-all infancy of experimental science at this stage the hypothesis was for a long time not objectively tested (at least not properly) and not fully explained or understood. Eventually it was tested, and disproved and it never got to be a proper theory.
This is not the case of evolution, evolution is not just a human 'idea' any more than the existence of gravity is an 'idea' or the fact that the world is round is an 'idea.' It's scientifically verified as an observable phenomena.

"We're right! Except when we're wrong. But this is totally different from that other time when we were wrong."

People in the 1400s had lots of observable evidence of a geocentric solar system. They were still wrong.

Part of believing in the scientific method is accepting that, at any time, a better theory can come along and be more correct.

We know Newtonian physics was wrong. But it still has a lot of solid evidence. Hell, it's even TAUGHT because it's pretty darn right in a lot of cases.

Einstein came along with a better theory that was more right. But it still doesn't explain everything. Then we've got quantum mechanics that, again, still doesn't explain everything.

I'm sure, eventually, we'll accept that all three are backwards and wrong as soon as someone comes up with something that is more correct and accurately describes MORE observable data.

Robdude wrote: »

Sure - and if you used enough big words, cited other papers and tossed in some math symbols - you could get it published in a respectable peer-reviewed journal and it would be science.

Um...I think you are talking right out of your arse now.

Guill wrote: »

I can google too:
I say again, everything is theory as above.
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Not really. The hypothesis of a geocentric universe is no longer a theory, is it?

RichieC wrote: »

I just hope the god the deniers in here are foreigners/yanks as I assume they are. I'm ashamed enough of this ****hole.

Um...if that was subtle irony it went way over my head at least. Which gods should we not deny? Someone said very rude stuff about Thor earlier.

devolution you mean, I fail to see how gradually having more and more things take care of emselves for us whilst we sit on our holes more can cause us to evolve

And we dont inherit knowledge at birth either, that's been built up from smarter people down the ages for us to build upon. The main foundations have been laid

hahaha... "the god" I said... I'm leaving that typo be