Science isn't All That Reliable...

A) Work on evolution by natural selection didn't end when Darwin died. 99% of the research conducted to define and clarify the theory was done by other people. He proposed the idea, and provided a basis to start looking for evidence, but it was the succession of scientists over the last hundred years who actually defined the theory and gave it its clearest examples. The fact that darwin himself could not posit a complete theory of natural selection is utterly irrelevant, because he was explaining the theory as best as his means and observations could allow. The fact that he didn't have an understanding of genetics (which wouldn't be known until decades later) does not, in any way, diminish the importance or broad accuracy of the theory.

B) Darwin's book is held in high esteem mainly because of how accurate the theory turned out to be despite Darwin's material and academic limitations. How could anyone expect him to have adequately explained the genetics of heritability when that subject didn't even exist when he wrote the book?

C) People who study evolution don't read On The Origin of Species like a bible. They don't study it looking for wisdom--because it does not even present the modern version of the theory. They read it out of an academic curiosity about the origin of the theory itself and because it is one of the great works of scientific literature. Why should they be expected to cite it by page and paragraph? It is not a holy book, nor something that most people are likely to read more than once. It isn't even a particularly good primer on the theory of evolution, which has changed substantially since the field of genetics emerged, and DNA was discovered. In Darwin's day, there was no rigorous understanding of population genetics or the migration of alleles or even how genes actually worked, and that is why the book is necessarily unclear on those matters. Subsequent scientists elaborated and clarified and described the mechanisms by which evolution actually takes place. Evolution has been more defined by the people who studied Darwin's theory and sought evidence to falsify it than by Darwin himself.

That's actually an important distinction to make, and it's one of the core distinctions between religions and science. Scientists build upon the work of the people that came before them, sometimes destroying theories, sometimes confirming them. If the people who came before are wrong, and the evidence shows that to clearly be the case, then they correct the error. Those that follow in the path of a great scientist are no less important or able to change the theory than the person who first proposed it. They have no less authority than the original author, because what matters is the evidence and your ability to test that theory against the evidence.

Religions work quite differently, where he who first makes the religion becomes the central figure of that religion, unable to be questioned or corrected. If Darwin really did create a religion of evolution, as you seem to be implying, none could have challenged or corrected his work--when, in fact, the theory of evolution changed radically after genetics emerged and DNA was discovered. It changed even more when population genetics were statistically defined and when people gained the ability to sequence DNA to study it directly. You are flat out wrong about most of your statements regarding the theory of evolution--and you seem completely unwilling to listen to anyone else who's been trying to correct your misconceptions.

Why should someone be able to cite chapter and verse from On The Origin of Species? It's not some holy book that people pour over and memorize. I would venture a guess and say that most scientists who study evolution probably haven't even read it, because it's not a particularly good text on the subject. It's over a hundred years out of date!

I know you want to believe that it's some kind of holy book and that Darwin led some cult, but it's simply not true.

 

Personally it is not a comforting thought to think that science replaces God.

History makes it clear that not all science is reliable. Much of science is very reliable.

For example: The laws of physics are very reliable. Conservation of mass always holds true, velocity = distance/time

Life as we know it would not exist if science were not reliable.. all the technology we have relies on the reliability of science.

Science and God can coexist happily IMO.

 

No, they were based on observations he made while traveling the world as a ship's naturalist. He had to infer a great many details because humanity as a whole lacked the requisite knowledge to fill those gaps, but he was broadly correct about the theory as a whole. Did he understand how heritability worked or how genes were coded? Absolutely not, but he couldn't be expected to. It would be as insane as saying that Volta was a cult leader living in a dream world because he didn't independently derive Maxwell's equations from his work on electricity.

There is nothing wrong with using one's ability to make rational conjectures to fill in gaps in knowledge; as long as you acknowledge that the gaps are there (which he did), and seek to fill in those gaps by studying the problem (which he did). The difference between scientists and clergymen is that the scientists are willing to accept that their conjectures may be wrong, while the clergy insist that it must be true because god said so.

 

Am I in Bizarro World? I just SHOWED you the evidence from his book.

How is that dishonesty? You knew what book we were discussing and you knew who the author was. They were direct quotes from the book. So, what is dishonest? Was I lying? Was I misleading you in some obscure way? What is it? Speak, boy.

If you quoted the Bible, I wouldn't call you dishonest because I know what book you would be quoting from. As long as I cite the author, I'm not sure what is wrong here. Would it be dishonest to quote a person unless I provided you an audio tape of the discussion?

 

Darwins work died when Darwin died. Unless you know more about Darwin than his family members know. To them, he died and was buried, thus unable to continue in his work.

Your text at the emphasized text proves my point. If others are working on Darwins theories, then it is not Darwins work.

The works of the Bible have been re-written by people who did not have personal knowledge of the events that took place, and the Theists suffer long and hard for leaning on such works that have been altered. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, therefore, I can, based on your testimony, lay the same degree of accusation on the works of Darwin, because 99.99 % has been altered by other people... therefore, it is no-longer the work of Darwin. It is a fake, not even close to a facsimile.

Though it is not typically a 'holy book' it is treated as one amongst those that choose to make it a basis for their belief in evolution. It is the foundation document of all that is known about the subject of evolution. Whether you admit it or not, in your mind, that is a 'holy book', because without it, those other scientists would not have found reason to go on with their research which was founded on those writings.

 

"I'm on vacation so I don't have the book in front of me and I don't memorize every word of Darwin's book since much of what Darwin taught was wrong."

There is the deception. You lead someone to believe that you don't memorize Darwins work, you admit that you don't have the book in front of you, you don't post a link to the cited quotations, yet you quote them. That is deceptive, when you knew all along that the resource was right in front of you in the form of a link to the on-line version of his book. That is the dishonesty. Deceptive use of language.

 

Anyone who doesn't accept the Theory of Evolution is either ignorant of it or not intelligent enough to understand it. There is no other choice.

 

Plus Darwin didn't come up with the Theory of Evolution, Darwin came up with Natural and Sexual Selection.

 

Once again, that isn't deception. Considering I am on vacation and don't have the book, the only obvious source I'd have is the internet. This is just pathetic.

"Oh no, you used the internet without saying so!"

Wow, what a lousy thing of me to do

How about dealing with the substance instead of going on some idiotic tangent?

 

Anyone who doesn't accept Spirituality is either ignorant of it or not intelligent enough to understand it. There is no other choice except to remain in a state of ignorance.

 

Darwin put forth the first comprehensive book on the subject, that doesn't mean that other people weren't working on something similar or knew about the subject at the time. Once again, a pathetic attack.

 

In a later version of his book Darwin gave credit to another scientist who was working on Natural Selection at the same time.

Do these creationists get everything from Kent Hovind?

 

You stated that you did not have the book in front of you.... when in fact you did have the book in front of you. You lied. Plain and simple.

 

Alfred Russel Wallace. It was literally a race to publication.

 

When you public a scientific theory, it becomes humanity's work, not just yours. Anyone else is free to pick that theory up and test it to see if it's true or not. If you think evolution is a sham, why don't you shake up the world a little bit by providing clear evidence of this?

You're the only person here trying to exaggerate Darwin's role.

So what? Scientific theories are supposed to be improved if the evidence shows how they're not accurate. They're supposed to represent the most accurate understanding we have of a phenomena given the information available in the present. Unlike religious texts, they aren't supposed to be unchanging. The fact that other people improved on the theory of evolution by natural selection does not reduce the legitimacy of the theory--if anything is actually improves the legitimacy of the theory, because it means countless numbers of scientists have analyzed it and consider it a true and correct description of how evolution works according to contemporary evidence. That's what you don't seem to be getting. Unlike religious works, scientific theories are supposed to change over time as we gain more knowledge and more observations. Religions become less legitimate in the minds of adherents when they're changed by others, but scientific theories become more legitimate and more accurate over time.

Again, I would say that most people who study evolution probably haven't read the book, and certainly didn't read it out of anything other than curiosity. It's not even a good textbook on the subject. It's literally a hundred and fifty years out of date. I don't know a single person alive today who treats On the Origin of Species as the "basis for a belief in evolution." You are completely and totally misrepresenting the importance of the book; and greatly exaggerating its role.

It represents about a third of the foundational work of the modern theory of evolution, with the other two major contributions being Mendel's work on genetics and Fisher, Wright and Haldane's work on quantitative genetics.

They may not have gone into the field without it, but their research was hardly "founded upon those writings". The basis for genetics and quantitative genetics do not lie within the pages of On the Origin of Species. Moreover, scientific theories tend not to be most accurate in their original state. Unlike religious works, where originalism matters, science is based solely on the evidence.

I would also point out that Darwin wasn't the only one of his contemporaries to independently derive the theory of evolution by natural selection. He was simply the first one with the balls and the means to write a book about it and get it published. Alfred Wallace also independently derived the theory around the same time, before Darwin had published his book. If neither of them had come up with it, others surely would have because Lamarckian evolution was so obviously wrong, and the evidence so strongly supports natural selection.

 

A physical copy of the book. Is this really what you're going to argue about? Semantics? Why don't you just admit that Darwin provided evidence for his theory and leave it at that instead of this stupid bull(*)(*)(*)(*)? Show some class.

 

Einstein is dead which is why the GPS system doesn't have to take relativity into account to work.

 

All you have done is undermine the importance of the Darwin works. As I said before, IF Darwin had not written his theory and published it, how many of those other scientists that got involved would have gotten involved? Darwins work is the ONLY foundation written on the subject. What others have written is an entirely different story altogether.

I am not exaggerating anything with regard to Darwins works. And it is Darwins works that are at discussion,,,, not the works of others that came in later years. It has already been admitted on this forum in this thread, that Darwin did not have evidence to support his imaginary claims. It has already been admitted that the continued research is for the purpose of 'validating the claims of Darwin'. If Darwins works were self validating, then there would be no need for further validation or research involved in validating those writings of Darwin. His work was imaginative, and yet even today, scientists are still rationalizing the situation and are in a constant flux of excuses in that hope of final validation. Until that point comes, all that are involved, are chasing ghostly figures of the imagination of a man long since dead.

 

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kent+hovind&aq=f

Now we can all just ignore what Incorporeal has to say and just listen to where he gets his info from the source.

 

Did I say physical copy of the book. No? Then you are taking matters out of context. You stated that you did not have the book in front of you, yet you quoted the book by using a copy that was in front of you. You lied.

 

Nope, sorry, I didn't have a copy of the book in front of me until I opened up the webpage. I had a copy available, I didn't have it in front of me until I opened the page. Semantics.

 

Evolution goes way back - further back then Darwin:

History of evolutionary thought

 

Darwin wrote in a time in which Larmarckism (is that the spelling) was what people thought of Evolution. Larmarckism is gone (well, it's making a slight come back) but Darwin's work stood the test of time.

 

Point being you had almost immediate access to it, so for all intents and purposes you had it in front of you. You could have as easily accessed that copy of the book before saying that you did not have it in front of you and this dispute would not be happening. But instead, you set the stage which allows me to say that you were deceptive in the language that you chose. You were deceptive, you lied with regard to the accessibility of the book and led me to believe that your only copy was perhaps miles away from your physical access. You can attempt to rationalize this all you want, but the point remains the same.... your integrity is extremely questionable at this point in time.

 

Incorporeal is going on about something that doesn't matter because all he has to serve up in this debate is (*)(*)(*)(*) sandwiches.