Do you accept the theory of evolution?

[superpower]

The Bible makes claims. Whether you believe them or not, is your business.

Science gives you reliable facts. Nothing more, nothing less.

At the end of the day, one you can take to the bank. The other is faith.

And you can take everything spoon fed to you or you can question.

 

[NateHevens]

Great reply. I look forward to diving in to all of your links.

Thanks.

Real quick on the topic of all DNA being so close.

It seems plausible that even an intelligent designer would use a base design. Much like a table has a base design even though some details may differ.

Yes. You are very right.

Except for one problem:
Saying "God did it" doesn't tell us anything. We're trying to understand how it happened. Every single piece of evidence taking in total suggests that the answer to the question is evolution, not design. The Theory of Evolution is the current best explanation we have of how evolution happens.

Oh and as for what a theory is.

A theory is an idea based on observations that make logical sense but ultimately can't be tested and therefore can't be proven.

Actually, you are very incorrect. The very hallmark of a theory is that it is falsifiable. If a theory cannot be falsified, then it cannot qualify as a scientific theory. So, in fact, theories are testable. They have to be, otherwise they cannot be theories.

ETA: Apologies. I'm deleting the paragraph this new one is replacing because it came off a lot more rude then I intended it to be. You have shown nothing for me to be annoyed with, here, so this paragraph is being removed for being unneeded and needlessly flaming. Forgive me.

And you can take everything spoon fed to you or you can question.

Questioning science is like questioning questions. It's redundant. Science is questioning... that's the point.

 

[Piper Maru]

15th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism Pt1
[YT]_wv6kgjOEL0[/YT]

The first of a two-part final installment to this series, explaining what the words, hypothesis, fact, law, and Theory actually are, rather than what creationists want us to think they are. Hint: a scientific theory isn't a guess, but an explanative study of real phenomenon.

15th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism Pt2
[YT]eGmLDKQp_Qc[/YT]

Ditto.

 

[Bill]

See same crud as religion.

Someone asks questions and it all goes to helll.

Yeah lots of difference between you all.

Human nature, what the bible explains so well but everyone misses out on in favour of heaven talk

You assuming a straw man idea of theory. A theory can certainly be tested. Facts and data have to be considered and tested against the predictions made by the theory to see how it holds up. But it's never "proven" as a fact, although they often come as close to it as science allows. It's not a conclusion. It's a framework that provides an explanation. It's either accepted or not. It's not a step towards fact or law since facts and laws can be plugged in to a theory to assist in predictions and explanations. They're not the same thing, nor are they comparable in the sense of a hierarchy. I don't think anyone here gave you the idea that theory and law are the same.

If your professor is saying that a theory is a conclusion or that it is untestable, then he's wrong. A theory must be testable by it's very definition, or it wouldn't be a theory.

 

[Thundercrack85]

And you can take everything spoon fed to you or you can question.

Science isn't spoon feeding. Science is asking what's in what you're being fed. That's the fundamental difference between science and belief.

 

[NateHevens]

For the record, a common misconception about science is that it deals in "proof".

Proof is for maths and court cases. Science deals in "evidence", and every theory (yes, including the Theory of Evolution) stands a chance of being proven wrong.

 

[DBryan]

Well I read it and.... No I'm not.

Just because theory and law have a lot in common, as the author states, this does not mean they are the same.

Yes one definition of theory is enough to say they are different.

I'm sorry but ill take my professors word over anything on the net. Further more I remember the test where I had to define both of these terms.

Because they are different.

Are a rat and mouse the same because the share similarities?

Theories and laws are different, yes. One of the links in the first post goes into detail on that.

I'm sorry - if you STILL think a theory is something that is untested, then you still don't know what a theory is.

 

[CJ]

I'm a Christian. I believe that God created the Heavens, the Earth and all that is in them.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[superpower]

Theories and laws are different, yes. One of the links in the first post goes into detail on that.

I'm sorry - if you STILL think a theory is something that is untested, then you still don't know what a theory is.

I can't lie I've spent the last few days really high.

Let me just say I go by many a motto, one could be enjoy what you know today because it will change tomorrow.

Hence my issue with taking anything as fact. Basically I was not sticking to evolution and blew the word theory and its many uses out the window. Not to mention my horrible use of scientific jargon.

For that my bad.

I'll make sure I post sober on a topic like this from now on

 

[superpower]

You assuming a straw man idea of theory. A theory can certainly be tested. Facts and data have to be considered and tested against the predictions made by the theory to see how it holds up. But it's never "proven" as a fact, although they often come as close to it as science allows. It's not a conclusion. It's a framework that provides an explanation. It's either accepted or not. It's not a step towards fact or law since facts and laws can be plugged in to a theory to assist in predictions and explanations. They're not the same thing, nor are they comparable in the sense of a hierarchy. I don't think anyone here gave you the idea that theory and law are the same.

If your professor is saying that a theory is a conclusion or that it is untestable, then he's wrong. A theory must be testable by it's very definition, or it wouldn't be a theory.

You're right I was. What I was, for some reason, getting hung up on was testing something like string theory.

As for the word "conclusion" that was my poor choice of words not a direct quote.

 

[Lord Valumart]

I accept the theory of evolution. It's provided me with evidence that I accept as possible. There are holes, granted. The trick is to accept that some things haven't been found yet or assume that some things happened a lot faster than the scientists think they did.

You don't just say magic and be done with it.

 

[NateHevens]

I can't lie I've spent the last few days really high.

Let me just say I go by many a motto, one could be enjoy what you know today because it will change tomorrow.

Hence my issue with taking anything as fact. Basically I was not sticking to evolution and blew the word theory and its many uses out the window. Not to mention my horrible use of scientific jargon.

For that my bad.

I'll make sure I post sober on a topic like this from now on

That's okay. I'm pretty sure most people do this every now and then...

You're right I was. What I was, for some reason, getting hung up on was testing something like string theory.

Ah, but String Theory is a mathematical theory. Scientifically, it is still a hypothesis.

I'm a Christian. I believe that God created the Heavens, the Earth and all that is in them.

 

[ChickenScratch]

I believe in evolution because it makes sense (my father is a scientist) and I'm an atheist ... though if I were to throw my cards in with any religion it would be Hinduism because that's my family's religion and culture.

 

[superpower]

That's okay. I'm pretty sure most people do this every now and then...



Ah, but String Theory is a mathematical theory. Scientifically, it is still a hypothesis.

Lol. I try man. Every exhale is an attempt to share with the world.

Yeah, I think an equation is what I was looking for. Two completely different things, I know. You should have been in my head as I reread my posts....WTF??? Lol


But hey, life is a learning experience. And if nothing else you guys did set me strait on "theory". So thanks for that. My looking glass has been broadened and that's all I can ask for.

 

[BAH HUMBBUG!]

Interestingly, if you read Prometheus right, all creatures evolved from Space Jockeys.

I don't want to argue, but the movie isn't very clear about your point.

 

[childeroland]

That movie isn't very clear about a lot of things.

 

[NateHevens]

Lol. I try man. Every exhale is an attempt to share with the world.

I know what you mean...

Yeah, I think an equation is what I was looking for. Two completely different things, I know. You should have been in my head as I reread my posts....WTF??? Lol

I know what you mean here, too... it's even harder when seconds move by like days...

But hey, life is a learning experience. And if nothing else you guys did set me strait on "theory". So thanks for that. My looking glass has been broadened and that's all I can ask for.

That's all any of us can ask for, my friend.

 

[DBryan]

 

[Piper Maru]

Carl Sagan describing evolution

[YT]gZpsVSVRsZk[/YT]

 

[NateHevens]

Y'all should listen to this:
[YT]cvPyHXvQXrc[/YT]

My favorite caller is near the end, the "thinking intellectual housewife". I'm pretty sure she could be the new voice for arrogant ignorance...

 

[DBryan]

Oh man. The Giant's Causeway controversy. I'm familiar with it. The National Trust recently put some audio in a new multi-million pound centre that implies there is still some debate over the scientific view of the age of the causeway, and the young earth creationist view. This has made many people understandably upset considering that a lot of public money has went towards this centre.

There is a facebook group against this move, and a facebook group in favour.

The facebook group in favour of it is hilarious. Reading through it, full of all the usual cliched creationist misunderstandings and examples of gross ignorance.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/204392869686865/

One of them posted a link to this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-18827752

And then they said...

More guff. We do well to remember in the face of this interminable amount of assumptions around evolution that there is NO physical evidence of this. This is just a theory. There is no missing link. Remind people of this often. Chimps may use human-like gestures, but so may other animals. It does not follow that we came from chimps.

SO many layers of things that are wrong with this. And there is no one posting in that group to correct this stuff.

 

[Bill]

I doubt it would make a difference. You're dealing with people who think of the Bible as "God's inerrant word" and Evolution as just a "theory from man." They don't care about the science.

 

[zanos]

I honestly can't believe there are 29 nos, and 3 not sures.

 

[Shemtov]

Sorry it took so long to reply to this question. I got distracted by another discussion on this thread I have reposted the convo to bring everyone up to speed.

Before I start I just want to say that 'm not trying to convert anybody; I just want to point out that Ii's not true that there's no way to prove the Bible is true.
First Of all I would like offer evidence that the Pentateuch was written all at once c. 1200 BCE, instead of the whole Jewish Bible being written around 500 BCE.
Imagine for a second you're a Jew living in Babylon/Persia around 500 BCE. Somebody comes out with a new book called the Bible.; It claims to have been written in parts for the past 700 years. A part of it claims to have been written around 1200 BCE. (This is directly in the Bible "Moses finished writing the words of this Pentateuch in a scroll to the very end" Deut 31:24)
Would you accept it?
And if he claimed it was lost, wouldn't the fact that the book was lost and rediscovered have been written in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which is the story of the period of Jewish History around 500 BCE?
Now Imagine you're an Israelite living around 1200 BCE. A guy named Moses brings this book that he claims is from God. The Book states that your people were in Egypt, and oppressed. Your Opressesors were punished by God in a plague that only effected the Firstborn, after a pretty public prediction of this plague by this Moses fellow. Then it states that your people crossed a sea which split. Then you saw God revealed in fire and smoke on Mt. Sinai. Now, if that never happened who would accept the book?
Nobody.
And furthermore, who in an agrarian society would accept a book that required you to rest the land for a year, once every seven years, and for two years in a row every 50 years if they weren't sure it was from God. Such customs could have really never have developed among the Israelites unless the were told to do it by God.
That's my proof. Even if you don't accept it you can't say we didn't try to prove it.

But that isn't really evidence, is it? The Exodus story was probably first drafted during the Babylonian exile (around 600 BCE), not around 1200 BCE, and the latest dating (a dating not accepted by most biblical scholars, I think) for the Exodus itself is almost 600 years earlier, around 1200 BCE. Why would Jews of the Babylonian period, around 600 BCE, have any reason we would accept today for accepting a relatively new account as historical just because the account itself claims in part to have been written six centuries earlier, around 1200 BCE? Is there any credible extra-Biblical evidence of an Exodus account dating around 1200 BCE or any other time before 600 BCE?

Read what I said before I brought up the part beginning "Imagine you're an Israelite living around 1200 BCE."

But how do we know Jews around 1200 BCE were offered any proof that we today could believe, particularly since 1200 BCE is generally considered such a long time after the Exodus took place if it did--Albright's late-dating of the Exodus (1200-1250) is largely out of favor with scholars. And the earliest non-Biblical account of the Exodus dates around the 4th century BC. It's currently thought that the J strand was probably written in the 6th century BCE during the exile and that the Priestly source was added to it at the very end of the 6th century or during the next.

Let me ask you or anyone who wishes to answer a question:
The Bible claims to have been written around 1200 BCE or thereabouts (It doesn't really matter when). As I said before this explicitly stated in the Pentateuch ( I quoted Deut 31:24, but this is stated in a few other places.)What did the compilers of the Bible around 500 BCE say to explain why this book wasn't around before?

There is Another question that I wish to ask:
The Bible claims miracles took place before hundreds of thousands of people There is not one other sacred book that claims this. The Quran, the Tripitakas, and the Avesta all claimed to have been revealed in a personal vision. Why didn't another sacred book claim a mass-witnessed miracle? Remember, if the Bible could get away with it, so could of others. And they would have wanted to, as it would have attracted more followers.

This is in fact, all relevant to this thread, as this book from God is one of the primary disproofs of evolution, though of course there are many others, which I will post later.