Best proof of evolution

Tim Robbins

An argument I hear a lot from theists, is that evolution has no proof it is just a theory, if you believe in it than you are using faith, just like theists do when the believe in God.
What are people's opinions of this?

Sarky

Science is not a belief system. This seems to be a problem with theists. It's a way of modelling things that happen. There are no facts, or even proof, just models that appear to fit very well to what we see happen. And those models are constantly being demolished and refined. Most often by the very people who came up with them in the first place.

If you "Believe" in any scientific theories, you're doing exactly the same as any theist, and you're not a scientist.

pH

Firstly we need to address 'proof'

We've all seen a mathematical proof:
'demonstration that, assuming certain axioms, some statement is necessarily true.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_proof

We're all comfortable with legal proofs - beyond a reasonable doubt, in the balance of probability.

BUT .... Scientific theories are not proven, they are disproven.

According to falsificationists, this involves the formation of a testable hypothesis, followed by ongoing attempts to refute this hypothesis via critical reasoning, experimentation and observation. A hypothesis that has been rigorously tested under a wide variety of conditions, and which remains unrefuted, is tentatively accepted as a useful approximation to the truth, and attains the status of theory; future observations may yet refute it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Science

Good examples of disproven theories are:
Luminiferous Aether
Lamarckian Evolution

So basically Evolution is a testable theory that no-one has been able to refute.

Asiaprod

Tim Robbins wrote:

An argument I hear a lot from theists, is that evolution has no proof it is just a theory, if you believe in it than you are using faith, just like theists do when the believe in God.
What are people's opinions of this?

From that perspective, true.
They both appear to be driven by faith.
The problem, however, lies not in the word faith, but in the definition of the word faith. Any faith that an atheist would/might/does have, is so far removed from the faith of a theists as to make, quite frankly, this issue a non-issue.

Tim Robbins

Sarky wrote:

Science is not a belief system. This seems to be a problem with theists. It's a way of modelling things that happen. There are no facts, or even proof, just models that appear to fit very well to what we see happen. And those models are constantly being demolished and refined. Most often by the very people who came up with them in the first place.

If you "Believe" in any scientific theories, you're doing exactly the same as any theist, and you're not a scientist.

I don't know about there being no proof to Science.
It's quite easy to prove Newton's laws for example.
Is bacterial resistence proof of evolution?

Sapien

The best proof of evolution is precisely that - an a priori proof from first principle assumptions (which in themselves need to be proved, but tend to be matters of observed fact, intuitively obvious, and accepted more easily, even by the loons). Something along the lines of genetic determinism, fitness, mutation, differentiated survival, vast periods of time... Bob's your uncle. Someone phrased it well and succinctly over on Christianity recently. Zillah maybe. Kind of a sub specie aeternitatis Gedankenexperiment (sorry).

ScumLord

I see the modern world as proff, if the scientific comunity got that wrong then they must have made a huge mistake somewhere Computers, TVs and cars wouldn't work.

Sapien

ScumLord wrote:

I see the modern world as proff, if the scientific comunity got that wrong then they must have made a huge mistake somewhere Computers, TVs and cars wouldn't work.

Hmm. I might just use that in my thesis.

Scofflaw

ScumLord wrote:

I see the modern world as proff, if the scientific comunity got that wrong then they must have made a huge mistake somewhere Computers, TVs and cars wouldn't work.

That is the strongest argument...if "materialistic science" had actually got things as drastically wrong as Creationists claim, then what works wouldn't.

Unfortunately, I can tell you the proper loony response, as well - that most of modern science is useful, because it is not affected by the evolutionists' improper assumptions - or it works in spite of them, not because of them. We have listed for their benefit at various times all the scientific (and other) fields that would need drastic rethinks if they are correct, but they just ignore that.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

A scientist would/should not use "believe" or "disbelieve" in respect of a theory - it's "accept" and "not accept".

For example, I don't accept that heredity is transmitted solely through genetic material without any environmental input over the life of the organism - but it would be meaningless to say I didn't believe it.

As pH points out, you can't prove a scientific theory - or any empirical theory. Proof belongs to the rationalist tradition. Empirical theories gather respectability by their capacity to explain new phenomena, and through their repeated non-failure.

This is why Creationists attack evolution the way they do - if they can disprove evolution, it ceases to be viable as a theory. Unfortunately, for them, they seem incapable of mounting a serious challenge - most of their efforts collapse into misunderstanding (deliberate or genuine), misuse (usually of dating techniques), or incredulity (claims that not being able to envisage evolutionary sequence 'x' is the same as 'x' being impossible).

For the majority of people, whose understanding of science, and scientific "due process", is limited to what they suffered through at school, the Creationist claims sound quite convincing, particularly since Creationists make a big song and dance about each attack.

To a Creationist it is irrelevant that evolution can explain 99.9% of all the phenomena it is expected to explain. To a scientist that is not irrelevant, since a theory is primarily judged by its explanatory power, and only something that really, stubbornly, cannot be explained is a genuine problem.

Is bacterial resistence proof of evolution?

Bacterial resistance? No, the Creationists say that it's evidence of God's providence - that is, that the bacteria already had the necessary genetic information to resist modern drugs, because God already knew that they would need it. Alternatively, they say that what has happened is that the bacteria have lost the genetic information necessary to process the drug into the harmful intermediate. Between them, those two bits of pseudoscience cover all the bases...

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zillah

Scofflaw wrote:

scumlord wrote:

I see the modern world as proff, if the scientific comunity got that wrong then they must have made a huge mistake somewhere Computers, TVs and cars wouldn't work.

That is the strongest argument...if "materialistic science" had actually got things as drastically wrong as Creationists claim, then what works wouldn't.

Unfortunately, I can tell you the proper loony response, as well - that most of modern science is useful, because it is not affected by the evolutionists' improper assumptions - or it works in spite of them, not because of them. We have listed for their benefit at various times all the scientific (and other) fields that would need drastic rethinks if they are correct, but they just ignore that.

Wait, no, Gods no no no. That logic essentially amounts to "Modern science has led to working things such as cars and spaceships, hence modern science in correct and that track record will serve as proof for all claims made by modern scientists."

Each and every theory has to stand on its own two feet, you can't just say that the trend of correct theories will continue and leave it at that. Evolution could be wrong. I really really doubt it, but it could be.

Scofflaw wrote:

Bacterial resistance? No, the Creationists say that it's evidence of God's providence - that is, that the bacteria already had the necessary genetic information to resist modern drugs, because God already knew that they would need it. Alternatively, they say that what has happened is that the bacteria have lost the genetic information necessary to process the drug into the harmful intermediate. Between them, those two bits of pseudoscience cover all the bases...

That or its demons.

Seriously. Theres people who believe that sickness is caused by Satan demon possession.

Scofflaw

Zillah wrote:

Wait, no, Gods no no no. That logic essentially amounts to "Modern science has led to working things such as cars and spaceships, hence modern science in correct and that track record will serve as proof for all claims made by modern scientists."

Each and every theory has to stand on its own two feet, you can't just say that the trend of correct theories will continue and leave it at that. Evolution could be wrong. I really really doubt it, but it could be.

You're correct, but you have me wrong! My argument is historical - if science (now) has things as badly wrong as Creationists claim, we would never have been able to produce the working technology that relies on that science.

This does not imply that new scientific theories are likely to be correct - nor can it do so, because every theory that is now generally accepted as correct has replaced one that wasn't - science therefore generates far more incorrect theories than correct ones.

It can, on the other hand, be used to argue that unsolved problems in science do not imply science's inability to answer those questions. That, if you like, is where belief enters science - we believe, as scientists, that science can and will answer the unanswered questions.

Having said that, evolution is one of science's oldest surviving theories, rather than something new.

cordially,
Scofflaw

The_Minister

ScumLord wrote:

I see the modern world as proff, if the scientific comunity got that wrong then they must have made a huge mistake somewhere Computers, TVs and cars wouldn't work.

I cannot, cannot accept your logic there. We are talking about completely unrelated scientific areas. They require different laws of physics.
Not only that but everyone's seen a car work, no-one has seen macro-evolution.

The Bollox

evolution: we, ourselves, can evolve to repel some viruses like Chicken pox

Scofflaw

The_Minister wrote:

I cannot, cannot accept your logic there. We are talking about completely unrelated scientific areas. They require different laws of physics.
Not only that but everyone's seen a car work, no-one has seen macro-evolution.

If Creationism is correct, it does not only affect the theory of evolution itself. It affects all of physics (speed of light, cosmology, hydrodynamics), botany, zoology, geology, chemistry, genetics, geography, archaeology, history...the list is long - I might go and look back through the Creationism thread for it.


cordially,
Scofflaw

Schuhart

Scofflaw wrote:

If Creationism is correct, it does not only affect the theory of evolution itself. It affects all of physics (speed of light, cosmology, hydrodynamics), botany, zoology, geology, chemistry, genetics, geography, archaeology, history...the list is long - I might go and look back through the Creationism thread for it.

Following up on the others, we have to do better than this. Its just not a valid proof of evolution to say 'Hold on while I split this atom. There you are.' If I told you 2+2=5 and you asked for proof and I said 'well, I was right when I said 3+3=6 yesterday' would you regard that as valid?

In fact, this line of reasoning plays into their hands because essentially it amounts to us saying the output of science should be accepted as a matter of faith - i.e. we trust the bits we don't understand. The whole point about science is we don't trust, and whatever is said can be backed with evidence.

What's the evidence for evolution? The fossil record. It can be scientifically tested to prove its age (so long as the Flying Spagetti Monster doesn't alter the results with his noodly appendage). It shows a steady progression of simple life forms to complex life forms and, ultimately, to us.

Let me stress I'm no expert. I've never dug any deeper, because I never really felt the need. I tried reading the Origin of Species once, but stopped after a few pages. To be honest I found it reminded me of that saying that if you are pointing a finger at the Moon its important that people know to look at the Moon and not your finger. Darwin, IMHO, wrote a book about his finger. But that's not to take away from the paradigm shift the book created, or the pretty obvious conclusion that evolution exists.

Ironically, I think the book on evolution that most appealled to me is Teilhard de Chardin's 'Phenomenon of Man'. The author was a Jesuit and unable to publish his work in his lifetime for fear of disturbing the minds of the faithful. To be honest, I cannot understand how someone could write that book and not take the extra step into atheism.

Scofflaw

Schuhart wrote:

Following up on the others, we have to do better than this. Its just not a valid proof of evolution to say 'Hold on while I split this atom. There you are.' If I told you 2+2=5 and you asked for proof and I said 'well, I was right when I said 3+3=6 yesterday' would you regard that as valid?

In fact, this line of reasoning plays into their hands because essentially it amounts to us saying the output of science should be accepted as a matter of faith - i.e. we trust the bits we don't understand. The whole point about science is we don't trust, and whatever is said can be backed with evidence.

I take your point. However, I have to add that we take it on faith that the scientific method will answer the question.

Yes, if I say that 2+2=5 and ask you to take it on faith because I was right yesterday about a different problem, you would be quite right to reject that and ask for proof.

But (and it's a big but), that's not what I'm saying. You ask me for proof of 2+2=5, and I'm asking you to trust the way the proof is done, not the unsupported statement.

Do you see what I'm saying? Science is an empirical technique, and we believe that it can answer questions, because we have empirical evidence that it can...

Schuhart wrote:

What's the evidence for evolution? The fossil record.

No, that's a jumble of stuff that died in the flood, neatly sorted by unspecified hydrodynamic processes to do anything you like up to spelling your name.

Schuhart wrote:

It can be scientifically tested to prove its age.

No, that's all lies, based on incorrect assumptions like Uniformitarianism. Creationists have used dodgy sampling techniques (stuff from mine tips that might have been a tree, but may have been an iron nodule), fed the resuts into an inappropriate method (C14 dating on 30Mya specimens - a technique that gives silly answers after 50-60,000 years), got a silly answer, and destroyed all the credibility of "so-called" scientific dating. Apparently.

Schuhart wrote:

It shows a steady progression of simple life forms to complex life forms and, ultimately, to us.

No, it shows entirely unrelated perfect forms. There are no transitional forms in the fossil record, and Piltdown Man was a fake, which just clinches it.

Schuhart wrote:

Let me stress I'm no expert. I've never dug any deeper, because I never really felt the need. I tried reading the Origin of Species once, but stopped after a few pages. To be honest I found it reminded me of that saying that if you are pointing a finger at the Moon its important that people know to look at the Moon and not your finger. Darwin, IMHO, wrote a book about his finger. But that's not to take away from the paradigm shift the book created, or the pretty obvious conclusion that evolution exists.

Let me stress that by reading a few pages of Origin of Species you're a whole lot more expert than the Creationists who think they know where he went wrong.

Creationists. I hate 'em. I'm going to play one here just for the fun of thinking twisty.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zillah

Scofflaw wrote:

You're correct, but you have me wrong!

Oh I gave you the benefit of the doubt, I just wanted to expose what the preferred reading of your post would probably be.

Marts wrote:

evolution: we, ourselves, can evolve to repel some viruses like Chicken pox

Existence of a phenomenon is not proof for a theory as to the origin of that phenomenon. For example. Person X believes he has a guardian angel that protects him from diseases. He then repels smallpox. This is not proof for his angel.

("Lisa, I'd like to buy your rock!")

Scofflaw wrote:

If Creationism is correct, it does not only affect the theory of evolution itself. It affects all of physics (speed of light, cosmology, hydrodynamics), botany, zoology, geology, chemistry, genetics, geography, archaeology, history...the list is long - I might go and look back through the Creationism thread for it.

Unfortunately they have the fall back that God could simply have put all those things in place. Wicknight explained/ridiculed it best on the Creationism thread where he essentially portrayed God as a complete lunatic that arranged the universe to look exactly like it was billions of years old and completely unlike the way he actually made it.

I think a good sample is the argument as to how we can see stars a million light years away if the world is only a few thousand. Well, God made the light en route! At the dawn of the time there was a sphere of light exactly ten thousand light years in radius around the earth...

Schuhart

Scofflaw wrote:

No, that's a jumble of stuff that died in the flood, neatly sorted by unspecified hydrodynamic processes to do anything you like up to spelling your name.

Indeed, there is a need to draw a distinction between a willingness to operate on the basis of accepting what we can reasonably work out and assuming there a divine reason for all this. By this I mean that we're probably satisfied if we take the best available method of dating old stuff, use it to sort fossils into date order, and notice it suggests a progression of less complex to more complex.

But, on the other hand, even if we had video footage, medical records and corrobarative testimony from a board of examiners representing the World Council of Churches all showing a Homo Erectus woman giving birth to a bouncing Homo Sapiens, the Creationists can just say God's doing it to test our faith.

All we can do is laugh at them, until they get really angry. Or maybe poke them with sticks.

ScumLord

The_Minister wrote:

I cannot, cannot accept your logic there. We are talking about completely unrelated scientific areas. They require different laws of physics.
Not only that but everyone's seen a car work, no-one has seen macro-evolution.

All scientific fields are somehow related (everything is somehow related) there all related by matimatics, physics and computers at least. A scientific discovery in one field can often make it's way into others even if it's just mild.

It's a fair assumtion to make I think.

nitrogen

Theory in the scientific world is at the top of the ladder for a proposed explanation of an occurrence in our universe. People who use the argument, 'Evolution is just a theory' are really expressing their ignorance of science.

Other theories include gravity and our planet revolving around a star.

donutface

I find your posts in here quite interesting.
Just thought Id play the devils advocate and post one site I came accross when I happened to be quite bored
It does make you think

http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=105

The entire site has quite a few articles at http://www.drdino.com/articles.php which interested me quite a bit

Note: Im not saying a God exists, im just saying that while religions have way too many unanswered questions, the theory in evolution has just as many. I try not to believe in something without looking at whats wrong with it first. Guess it doesnt get me very far either as I dont really know what I believe

pH

donutface wrote:

I find your posts in here quite interesting.
Just thought Id play the devils advocate and post one site I came accross when I happened to be quite bored
It does make you think

http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=105

The entire site has quite a few articles at http://www.drdino.com/articles.php which interested me quite a bit

You're either "playing devil's advocate" or genuinely find this stuff credible - "It does make you think" - Which is it?

If you do genuinely find anything on that page even remotely convincing, or find yourself struggling to come up with an answer for one of Dr Dino's Dumb Questions then pick one of his questions and ask it here.

robindch

> I dont really know what I believe

Well, assuming you're not trolling and haven't seen this post from a couple of days ago, Kent Hovind who also trades under the name "Dr Dino", and who bought his doctorate from a cheap diploma mill, is currently helping Florida police with a series of allegations of widespread tax fraud and intimidation, on top of a conviction a few years back for other kinds of unpleasant dishonesty:

http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060714/NEWS01/607140333/1006
http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060727/NEWS01/60727013

It would be hard to say that Hovind is a good choice for you to rest your opinions on

stevejazzx

science

based on merit, open to be disproved and always evolving.

religon

based on legends, claimed as fact, standing still if not sinking...

donutface

Well I honestly wasnt trolling. Thanks for the link to the previous post too, I actually didnt know about that. I have to go to school first, but ill def look into it later today

bonkey

Tim Robbins wrote:

I don't know about there being no proof to Science.

Then you need to read up on what constitutes science, I guess.

It's quite easy to prove Newton's laws for example.

No, its not.

The opposite is true - Newton's Laws (at least in part) are known to be incorrect and have been disproven. If you don't believe me, read up on how Relativity was first tested "in the field". It made predictions which were at odds with Newtonian physics. Guess which was verified by experiment?

Indeed, one can go further. No test of Newton's laws or Newtonian Physics could serve as proof. All you could prove is that at a certain place and time and to the limits of the degree of accuracy measured, the measurements made were in agreement with Newtonian physics. You can have no certainty from such tests that no future test, under any conditions, in any part of the universe will ever show an unexpected result....but exactly wuch certainty is what proof would give us. You could be reasonably certain, but that in itself is an admission that something hasn't been proven, simply well-enough established that we can assume it to hold true in the general case.

It is still the case that it (Newtonian physics) remain reasonably accurate representations of what is ovserved, and unless we are working at a degree of accuracy (or a great enough scale) where those inaccuracies matter, they are adequate for the job.

But if we remember that science is about modelling, and not about objective, absolute truth....this ceases to be a problem.

Zombrex

donutface wrote:

http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=105)

Believe me you can get much better challanges to evolution that this crap.

Where does love come from? Is he being serious?

Take this question for example -

"If the first generation of mating species didn't have parents, how did the mating pair get to that point anyhow? Isn't evolution supposed to progress when an offspring of a mating pair has a beneficial mutation?"

That shows a fundamental lack of understanding of basic biology and genetics, such as asexual reproduction, along with a lack of understanding of the theory of evolution to start with.

Congelliere seems unaware that a large number of organisms reproduce asexually. It is easy to imagine that a couple of thousand mutations here and there would produce slighlty different streams of offspring that then required combination of sexual material produce offspring.

It hard to argue with an idiot because to do so you have to move down to his play field, and as such you find yourself responding to idiotic notions. If one doesn't understand the concepts the are challanging then any response to those challanges will appear equally baffling to said idiot.

Dades

Somebody is cranky because the Creationism thread has disappeared.

pH

bonkey wrote:

But if we remember that science is about modelling, and not about objective, absolute truth....this ceases to be a problem.

I agree fundamentally with your post (well except for the CS Lewis quote obviously), science is all about testable theories that no one has been able to refute. Viewing them as models works for me too.

What happens when by necessity science is called on to provide an objective truth? Take DNA evidence in trials, science based and serious enough to deprive someone of their liberty on indeed their life.

At a certain level even though we're all too much of a philosopher to call it 'proven' or 'the truth', we have to say that for all practical purposes, for a human living on this planet it's as close to the truth as it is possible to get.

Wicknight wrote:

"If the first generation of mating species didn't have parents, how did the mating pair get to that point anyhow? Isn't evolution supposed to progress when an offspring of a mating pair has a beneficial mutation?"

It's SEX Jim - But not as we know it!

robindch

> [donutface] Well I honestly wasnt trolling.

Good news, then!

Rather than trying to learn biology from religious websites run by convicted fraudsters who want to sell you religious DVD's, CD's, books, "lectures", subscriptions, "creation cruises", trips to theme parks and all that kind of commercial stuff, I'd recommend that you go instead to a site which is run by professional scientists as a hobby:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

More on Hovind and his fake doctorate is here and here.

Btw, should we be discussing this in our shiny new Creationism Thread? Things are a trifle quiet there.

Asiaprod

The Atheist wrote:

Somebody is cranky because the Creationism thread has disappeared.

Wicknight wrote:

If one doesn't understand the concepts the are challanging then any response to those challanges will appear equally baffling to said idiot.

That a beauty wicknight, I am going to steal that to use verbally.

bonkey

pH wrote:

What happens when by necessity science is called on to provide an objective truth?

Scientists should refuse.

Take DNA evidence in trials, science based and serious enough to deprive someone of their liberty on indeed their life.

Yes, but thats distinct from objective truth. Even in shows like CSI which are exaggerating how certain science is, you'll get people saying things like "Thats a 1 in 5 trillion match. Good enough for me".

DNA matching is exactly that. Its a probabilities game.

I seem to recall reading during the OJ trial that the quality of testing only provided a match to 1 in 100,000, and that the defence were going to leverage this to argue that there were therefore approximately 60 people in LA that day who could have comitted the crime and this it was non-definitive.

Obviously, today, things are more exact. I dunno what the certainty-level can get up to now, but it will always be some miniscule amount below 100%.

We could theoretically set the probability bar high enough that we could reasonably expect to never get a false positive within the lifetime of the universe....but its still just a probability game and never to be confused with objective truth....and its still possible that we get a false positive.

At a certain level even though we're all too much of a philosopher to call it 'proven' or 'the truth',

I disagree that its to do with philosophy.

I generally don't call it proven, or the truth because its not proven and its not the truth. When I do (mis)use these terms, its because they're a close enough representation of what is being discussed to make them worthwhile. Just like using Newtonian over Relativistic: its simpler, and usually good enough for the job.

But I'm always aware that when I claim something has been scientifically proven, I'm only being mostly accurate and that its not entirely true. Maybe its my background in math.

But I'll stop now, before going utterly off-topic.

jc