Journal the_mad_poster's Journal: Evolute Evolute lol 13
Just some random, general points that were encouraged by Eth's JE this morning. Feel free to discuss the more specific topics at hand over there.
Evolution Might Be Wrong
True. I might also be wrong when I say that clouds can float in the sky. But the odds that I'm wrong are so astonishingly poor that there's no common sense reason for anybody to pursue the possibility.
Evolution is like that. All evidence so far points to the current theories of evolution. It's not like a bunch of scientists just got together one day and decided to perpetrate this huge hoax and they've managed to get all members of people from the various related fields to play along. They looked at the evidence, made some predictions and some hypotheses, tested, found some more evidence and here we are. Everything we've found so far has pointed to the current evolutionary theories. Yes, we might be wrong on the whole, but the odds are so astonishingly small that this is the case that it's not worth actively pursuing. If some new, earth-shattering bit of evidence comes up that throws the whole thing into a tailspin, then new ideas will be formed. Until then, however, the evidence points to X, so X it is.
This is why evolution is a fact, just like it's a fact that clouds float in the sky. Fact does not imply 100% airproof, uncontestable truth, otherwise there would be no facts. Fact simply implies that it's so unlikely that the statement is false as to not be worth even thinking about the possibility.
There is no meaningful debate on Evolution
When it comes right down to it, the only place evolution is debated is in the popular and legal realms, and neither of those are science. It's like arguing the speed of light from a legal perspective. It really doesn't matter what the judge or the population thinks, the speed of light doesn't really change based on public and legal opinions. It's not like if the majority of the population believes that the speed of light is half what it really is then the light from the sun is going to slow down and take twice as long to reach earth. Just like evolution, the speed of light doesn't care what you think. It just is, and nothing you can do will ever change that.
Random list of discredit anti-evolutionist arguments
Post your favorite anti-evolution argument and I'll explain why it's invalid. In the meantime, here's a common list:
1) Carbon dating is not accurate
This is a partial statement. Carbon dating is inaccurate in some respects. For example, you can't pull a fossil out of deep ocean water and carbon date it because the ocean retains a great deal of carbon and you'll get an inaccurate result. Fortunately, there are many different types of dating methods that are used for different situations depending on what was found where.
2) The sun is shrinking
The sun is not shrinking. The argument alone is fallacious, but that doesn't even matter because the information is just plain fiction.
The "argument" stems from a "finding" more than a quarter of a century old by John Eddy and Aram Boornazian at the American Astronomical Society meeting in 1979. The findings were immediately disputed and have since been determined to be the results of flawed instrumentation. Studies attempting to corroborate the findings found, respectively, 1/4 and 1/7 of the expected amount of shrinkage predicted by Eddy and Boornazian's results. It did, however, lead to the finding that the sun's diameter does shrink and expand on a regular cycle of about a 1/4 of a millenium.
Even if the findings had been inaccurate, it would still be a fallacy since it automatically assumes that because the sun was shrinking at the point in time of the discovery, it must have always been shrinking. There is, of course, no reason to believe this to be true.
3) Various "hoax" or "inaccurate" fossil records
For every one hoax there are hundreds if not thousands of validated fossil records. A handful of mistakes/hoaxes - all eventually discredited by science, ironically - does not invalidate the evidence provided by all the valid records.
4) The Watchmaker Analogy
This is perhaps one of the more maddening "arguments" presented, because it is clearly a false analogy. It was originally put forward by Cicero using a sundial and the shadow as an example (the movement of time is driven by intelligence) and then updated by William Paley using a watch. The argument goes:
a) A watch is complex
b) A watch has a watchmaker
c) Life is complex
d) Life must have a creator
You cannot, of course, logically infer that because two objects share one trait, they must naturally share another as a matter of course. This is easily illustrated by "proving" that money grows on trees:
a) Leaves have complex cellulite structures.
b) Leaves grow on trees
c) Money has complex cellulite structures.
d) Money must grow on trees
Meh. Abrupt journal entry end here.
talkorigins.org (Score:2)
I debated all of this crap years ago and that website is a great resource for those who still enjoy the debate.
Re:talkorigins.org (Score:2)
Good Lord. Virtually everything I wrote was covered there already.
/me walks away sheepishly
Cheers,
Ethelred
Re:talkorigins.org (Score:1)
Re:talkorigins.org (Score:2)
And like I said, the FAQ pretty well echoes what I wrote (or, more accurately, the
Yes, it would be lovely to move on from this (Score:1)
But even now there is a trial going on to try and stop the teaching of ID in Dover, PA schools. Agressively grokless people are inevitably going to damage their children, but they don't damage MY children without a fight.
Correcting repeated errors of fact and obvious logical fallacies doesn't seem to be enough. You just have to get belligerent.
Re:Yes, it would be lovely to move on from this (Score:1)
I bought a car in Dover once. 1994 Marroon Thunderbird LX with the 4.6L V8. That thing was smoooooth and man was it comfy. For being roughly the size of a house boat, it handled corners with the most even keel I've ever seen.
Bitch rolled out of a Sheetz parking lot in a Diplomat about 7 months later without looking while she was supposed to be in school and t-boned it. The Ford dealership I took it to did a pretty good job fixing up the panels, but the door was
Always attack, never defend. (Score:2)
God is just a theory. No, it's not even a theory, most of the time - because the second you find anything testable about religion, believers race away with their ears covered so they don't hear the results. It's a badge of pride to see proof your religion is bullshit and your religious leaders are lying to you, and believe anyway.
Christianity is pure speculation. And it's really, really obviouly dumb speculation.
Since we're all for ending the separation of church and state
Re:Always attack, never defend. (Score:1)
Giordano Bruno, on the other hand, was burned alive nearly a century earlier by the Catholic Church for pushing Copernican theory.
Evolution (Score:2)
Well, I'm not going to post an anti-evolution argument simply because I've not heard one that I don't consider silly. But I will pose this one to you - why isn't the adaptibility of virii [wikipedia.org] to antibiotics considered proof of evolution?
Re:Evolution (Score:1)
Re:Evolution (Score:2)
OK, my lack of any sort of background in biology is showing. A quick read of wikipedia discusses the grey area between viruses being living and non-living. "Viruses have genes and show inheritance, but are reliant on host cells to produce new generations of viruses." Doesn't the fact that they have genes that are passed along (even though they ca
Re:Evolution (Score:2)
Bacteria are living things, and a LOT of them are now resistant to many antibiotics.
Re:Evolution (Score:2)