Originally Posted by Silligoose
Odlov: Glad to see you have joined us
Unfortunately I can't say I'm as glad.
I do grow tired of people changing this subject into a 'it's either God or evolution' battle. Why? Because then people have to heavily fight for evolution since they now believe if they are wrong about that then suddenly they are wrong about there being a God. As stated earlier there are religions that do not refute evolution and view it as an explanation of how we (as humans) got here. Wouldn't it be better to rather look at evolution with the following mindset: 'If the theory is wrong, so what? It's wrong. We need do build a new theory based on facts. It doesn't automatically mean other theories are suddenly correct.'
Yes, the presence of evolution does not necessarily mean there is no god, but it may well imply there are no certain specific gods.
That's neither here nor there, however.
I watched your video on evolution vs creationism. Nothing new there. Yes creationists bring up problems with the evolution theories.
Wrong. Biologists themselves bring up problems with their theories, because science tends to do that. What creationists often bring up aren't actually problems, but misconceptions (eg, "why aren't monkeys evolving into humans?") That's because they lack the know-how to spot any actual problems (again, an allusion to the fact that no serious scientist in the field is a creationist).
What you failed to note in that video is that all of them have a PhD in fields relevant to evolution.
Now let's say I believe aliens put us here and live among us and I dedicate my life to trying to prove I am right. I now say: 'Hang on, I was in Hawaii at the beach and there the water boiled at 95 degrees. I believe (for whatever reason) this is because of the aliens.' Along with this statement I give some evidence. Does discrediting me bring you closer to the truth? No. Does discrediting me mean that what I found isn't true? No. Does this mean that the findings should be disregarded because I believe in something that is nonsense to you? No. Now let's say that you actually do look at the evidence and see that your theory needs a total overhaul and you find that altitude wasn't the reason for the differences in boiling temperature. Does this automatically mean that it was because of aliens? No. Did addressing the PROBLEM and building a new theory help you (and mankind) understand why water boils at different temperatures (pressure differentials)? Yes. If evolution over millions of years is proven to be true not all religions will simply break down. If it's proven wrong it doesn't mean that suddenly the existence of God has been proven.
I'm not sure whom this is addressed toward.
Anyhow, evolution over millions of years is proven true -- there is no controversy among scientists concerning the reality of evolution as a process.There are no non-believers among people who actually study sciences pertaining to origin and development of life. There are some notable biologists and geneticists who call themselves Christians, like Francis Collins for example. However, they are not like you because they can't reject evolution in face of evidence they work with every day.
See how straightforward my claim is? No creationists among modern biologists. Surely all it would take to prove me wrong is a quick google search, which will bring up all these literalistic christian scientists. Maybe you'll find 1 or 3, but they will have to be obscure characters indeed.
Now I'll tell you why I see kids being forced to learn darwinism as a problem - it is a theory with quite a few gaps. Now if the kids are brought up to learn this theory as fact many of them will follow this line of thinking. If they pursue a career in biology after being force fed a theory and find some facts or evidence which contrasts the model, they might write it off as an anomaly, try to make those facts or evidence fit with the model or disregard it for whatever reason (pride, insecurity, keeping their job etc) instead of saying 'Hey, this actually causes a problem. Let's try to resolve it by looking for an alternative. Let's not try to make it fit with a standing model(and here I refer to both creationist theories as well as darwinist theories). Let's think outside the box. Let's look at the facts and try to make sense of that.'.
Again I refer to this link (http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/archie/scutes.htm). What happened to this research? I myself have not found much after this, yet the experiment suggests that dinosaurs might have evolved from birds (which seems to contrast what the MAJORITY believes) or that birds and dinosaurs have a common ancestor. If people are too heavily set on proving a theory they will find a way to make it fit or disregard findings. This is not the best way to move forward.
Ok, so what?
If accepted, this will merely call for refinement of one specific account in the theory, and will have nothing to say of other accounts (eg evolution of a squirrel, gorilla, human).
Neither will it call into question the process of evolution itself. That is firmly established.
The theory has been refined many times since Darwin (see Modern evolutionary synthesis) but the basic premise stands impervious: organisms evolve from other organisms by means of natural selection.
Last edited by Odlov; Dec 12, 2010 at 10:30 PM.
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