Is evolution a hard science?

[pat34lee]

Fruit Flies:
http://www.icr.org/article/5532/

The tests performed mean absolutely nothing nada if they have failed to understand how flawed and unrelated the tests are. They in no way demonstrate the scope and scale needed to evolve something, they are essentially performing meaningless rather ignorant tests..... AND?

The scientific community would literally laugh these joes out of the room and shut the door behind them, sorry!

The scientific community are the ones who did these tests. Of course the earlier ones would have been more primitive, but before DNA was discovered, they thought it would be easy to mutate something into a new species. Today, they should know better, but the big money only flows to pro-evolution research.

[PerciFlage]

At 30k years old the Venus is older than human civilization, but it isn't older than humans, not by a long shot. It dates fell the most recent 10% of human history - not hominid history, but h. Sapiens history - which is why it's incongruous on that list.

The problem with that list is that there are a couple of items where there is pretty compelling evidence for them definitely not supporting an alternative timeline, but none with compelling evidence that they definitely do support an alternative. Quite a few that are inconclusive either way, but not a one that is even close to a slam dunk for that site's thesis.

Most OOPARTS sites are not out to create an alternate timeline, just to show that there are many things that the current scientific theories cannot explain. That could be architecture that seems much older than possible, or bones or artifacts being found that are far older or younger than evolution can account for.

You posted those links in response to this comment from hughfarey:

Quite so. Fossil DNA is unlikely to be the way to disprove Evolution. There are plenty of other ways. Finding a dinosaur fossil in pre-cambrian rocks would be a good one.

In addition to this, the sites you linked to were absolutely trying to create an alternate timeline - in fact they went as far as suggesting that mainstream scientists are engaged in a conspiracy to prop up a false timeline, and earlier in this thread you yourself seemed to suggest you agreed with the conspiracy idea.

You're right to say that there are many things that scientific theories cannot explain, but the list contained on that link that I went through contained some things that could be satisfactorily explained, and other things that were unexplainable due to incredibly poor documentation. There was not a single item which was both comprehensively documented and actively contrary to accepted timelines. I'm not dodging behind semantics here - there is a crucial, fundamental difference between something that cannot be explained by a theory and something which contradicts that theory.

[Revolutionary]

Fruit Flies:
http://www.icr.org/article/5532/

The tests performed mean absolutely nothing nada if they have failed to understand how flawed and unrelated the tests are. They in no way demonstrate the scope and scale needed to evolve something, they are essentially performing meaningless rather ignorant tests..... AND?

The scientific community would literally laugh these joes out of the room and shut the door behind them, sorry!

The scientific community are the ones who did these tests. Of course the earlier ones would have been more primitive, but before DNA was discovered, they thought it would be easy to mutate something into a new species. Today, they should know better, but the big money only flows to pro-evolution research.

They should have put me on the board then, I would have laughed them out of the room and shut the door behind them..... And sorry, science doesn't have an agenda, if it did, the overwhelming data supporting evolution would have been covered up by the more popular belief set.... Only anti-evolution has an agenda to defend!

[PerciFlage]

The scientific community are the ones who did these tests. Of course the earlier ones would have been more primitive, but before DNA was discovered, they thought it would be easy to mutate something into a new species. Today, they should know better, but the big money only flows to pro-evolution research.

They should have put me on the board then, I would have laughed them out of the room and shut the door behind them..... And sorry, science doesn't have an agenda, if it did, the overwhelming data supporting evolution would have been covered up by the more popular belief set.... Only anti-evolution has an agenda to defend!

Individual scientists have biases and agendas, and the same goes for funding bodies and peer-reviewers. The important thing when reading a scientific paper is to always go beyond the abstract - don't just look at the what the authors conclude, but look to see if their data supports their conclusions. Look for any conflicts of interest, and be extra rigorous when examining the conclusions in proportion to the scale of the conflict.

I think you are misinterpreting the purpose of current drosophila research. Drosophila is a widely researched laboratory species, but the purpose of the research is rarely (if ever nowadays) to make the flies morph into a new genus. They're a useful research species because they have a well-characterised genome, they breed readily and swiftly in lab conditions, and they're cheap to deal with. A lot of our understanding of the manifold ways that DNA can mutate between generations come from a small number of such lab-friendly species.

[pat34lee]

The scientific community are the ones who did these tests. Of course the earlier ones would have been more primitive, but before DNA was discovered, they thought it would be easy to mutate something into a new species. Today, they should know better, but the big money only flows to pro-evolution research.

They should have put me on the board then, I would have laughed them out of the room and shut the door behind them..... And sorry, science doesn't have an agenda, if it did, the overwhelming data supporting evolution would have been covered up by the more popular belief set.... Only anti-evolution has an agenda to defend!

Individual scientists have biases and agendas, and the same goes for funding bodies and peer-reviewers. The important thing when reading a scientific paper is to always go beyond the abstract - don't just look at the what the authors conclude, but look to see if their data supports their conclusions. Look for any conflicts of interest, and be extra rigorous when examining the conclusions in proportion to the scale of the conflict.

I think you are misinterpreting the purpose of current drosophila research. Drosophila is a widely researched laboratory species, but the purpose of the research is rarely (if ever nowadays) to make the flies morph into a new genus. They're a useful research species because they have a well-characterised genome, they breed readily and swiftly in lab conditions, and they're cheap to deal with. A lot of our understanding of the manifold ways that DNA can mutate between generations come from a small number of such lab-friendly species.

When science found DNA and the basics of how it worked, they knew that looking for mutations as a means to evolution was not possible. Now most genetic research is into diseases and defects to see if they can fix them. I don't know how many use fruit flies any more, as they have been about studied out. At peak though, there could have been dozens of groups carrying out different studies on them.

[hughfarey]

Have you ever heard of OOPARTS (out of place artifacts)? These are found constantly.

All sort of odd things pop up constantly. Not one has ever demonstrated the truth of creationism.

There are no conditions that would preserve cartilage from breaking down totally in no more than 30k years.

What an extraordinarily dogmatic remark. The preservation of dinosaur soft tissue is well established and has been so for over a decade.

Almost all scientific institutions from the late middle ages until the 20th century were religious. This includes most hospitals, colleges and universities.

Yes and no. Take the Heliocentric view of the Solar System, for example. At the same time as Galileo began his investigations into the truth of the Copernican theory, advances in telescopy led the Jesuit scientists in Rome, such as Christopher Clavius and Christoph Greinberger, to accept the new paradigm. It was their unscientist Superior General Claudio Acquaviva who ordered them to suppress their ideas. Fortunately, the current Pontifical Academy of Sciences enjoys the confidence of the pontificate, which recently, in the persons of Pope John-Paul II and Benedict XVI, has been at pains to emphasise the rationality of the Catholic Faith.

[Byblos]

... the current Pontifical Academy of Sciences enjoys the confidence of the pontificate, which recently, in the persons of Pope John-Paul II and Benedict XVI, has been at pains to emphasise the rationality of the Catholic Faith.

Evidence please.

[hughfarey]

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_ ... io_en.html
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/bened ... rg_en.html

[pat34lee]

Have you ever heard of OOPARTS (out of place artifacts)? These are found constantly. All sort of odd things pop up constantly. Not one has ever demonstrated the truth of creationism.

I haven't started on proving anything. The purpose of the thread is that evolution, also creationism, cannot be proven by science.

What an extraordinarily dogmatic remark. The preservation of dinosaur soft tissue is well established and has been so for over a decade.

Exactly, and since both are true, that leads to a certain conclusion. Dinosaurs < 30k years ago.

[Ivellious]

Evolution is a proven fact. Genetic change over time in populations happens, end of story, it is a fact.

The evolutionary history of Earth has not been proven (that is, that life has evolved over millions of years to its current state). It is, however, supported by science in a number of fields of research and study. There is little to no scientific evidence or criticism that all life can trace its evolutionary history back for millions of years.

Creationism cannot be proven by science, like the evolutionary history of Earth. Of course, unlike evolution, creationism has no scientific evidence at all to support its history of Earth, especially if you are referring to young-Earth creationism. So, pat34lee, you are sorta correct. Neither has been proven, in a scientific sense. But one has a huge amount of scientific evidence to support it while your belief has pretty much none. So that's the biggest difference from a scientific perspective.

[hughfarey]

I haven't started on proving anything. The purpose of the thread is that evolution, also creationism, cannot be proven by science.

You're still misunderstanding the meaning and purpose of Science. Science doesn't prove things, it comes up with coherent explanations of things. Evolution is a remarkably consistent explanation for a vast array of observations, of past and present organisms. Creationism consistently fails to explain these observations in any but the most simplistic of ways.

Exactly, and since both are true, that leads to a certain conclusion. Dinosaurs < 30k years ago.

No. The statement (yours) that "there are no conditions that would preserve cartilage from breaking down totally in no more than 30k years" is not generally accepted by any specialists in soft tissue preservation, while the statement (mine) that "the preservation of dinosaur soft tissue is well established and has been so for over a decade" is.

[pat34lee]

Evolution is a proven fact. Genetic change over time in populations happens, end of story, it is a fact.

The evolutionary history of Earth has not been proven (that is, that life has evolved over millions of years to its current state). It is, however, supported by science in a number of fields of research and study. There is little to no scientific evidence or criticism that all life can trace its evolutionary history back for millions of years.

Creationism cannot be proven by science, like the evolutionary history of Earth. Of course, unlike evolution, creationism has no scientific evidence at all to support its history of Earth, especially if you are referring to young-Earth creationism. So, pat34lee, you are sorta correct. Neither has been proven, in a scientific sense. But one has a huge amount of scientific evidence to support it while your belief has pretty much none. So that's the biggest difference from a scientific perspective.

Actually, there is no real evidence for macroevolution. The more that scientists learn, the more impossible evolution gets. And we haven't even gotten into DNA or cell structure.
http://www.icr.org/article/260/

[neo-x]

Actually, there is no real evidence for macroevolution.

You are living evidence of it.

[Ivellious]

Actually, there is no real evidence for macroevolution. The more that scientists learn, the more impossible evolution gets. And we haven't even gotten into DNA or cell structure.
http://www.icr.org/article/260/

Oh my, oh my, oh my...So you give us a link from the Institute for Creation Research? To back up a point using "science"? You do realize you are, in essence, using an organization that does no scientific research, has never published any scientific research, and has no interest in doing real scientific research? That is rather ironic. The article itself is not a scientific article in the least, either.

He quotes no scientific journals, first of all.

He quotes no research, second of all, so none of the statements he makes are actually being backed up by anyone but him.

Third, his quotes of evolutionary biologists and other real scientists are out-of context one-liners and incomplete quotes (that is, he ends the quote early or or skips over parts of what is being said in the middle of the quote). Case in point: ". . . the theory of recapitulation . . . should be defunct today." 17 You see those groups of periods. Yeah, that means he just skipped big chunks of the quote and, in this case, made the quote say something completely different than what was actually said.

Fourth, even if this was a scientific article (which it is not), the article and everything it quotes is around 30 years old. Yikes. That is a long time for any scientific article to remain completely valid.

Fifth, while he is great at repeatedly saying "there is no evidence for evolution!", he completely fails to account for the evidence that scientists say they have. In essence, even as scientists show off their evidence, he is just pretending not to hear any of it and saying there is none in turn.

Sixth, even if there was no evidence for evolution, his final assertion is absurd. He says that, because there is no evidence for evolution, that creationism is proven? Hello? Talk about logical fallacies. He shows no evidence himself, so his assertion is just a bald-faced lie.

And I say this knowing that Henry Morris was a bright guy. I shudder to think that he actually graduated from the school I go to now, since he sorta wasted all that education to instead do no science for the rest of his life, but hey, at least he was happy about it. Still, try reading some real science sometime. Not 30-year-old junk from an organization that hasn't done any scientific study into evolution. Or creationism, for that matter.

[PerciFlage]

Fourth ... the article and everything it quotes is ... completely valid.

I hope you have some pretty strong evidence for that, young sonny Jim me lad.