No Witnesses

As one of the resident lawyers on EvC, I have to point out that the above is overstated, and that some hearsay is accepted as evidence. For example if the absence of a witness in court is caused by the defendant, then some of the witnesses out of court statements will be admissible. The defendant's own out of court statements that are against his own interest are admissible.Just nitpicking. I agree with everything else you said.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I don't think that statement is quite true. I believe you've seen before and after conditions in circumstances such that an inference of macroevolution is inescapable. Please note that I am not saying that there is no conclusive, scientific evidence for evolution or speciation. Macroevolution simply means a degree of microevolution that a creationist will not accept. Because "kinds" has no real meaning, macroevolution cannot have real meaning either.My remarks are intended to imply that we have not observed evolution directly either, where a direct observation of evolution would mean directly observing the process that results in the population of offspring differing from its ancestor population due to diversity + natural selection. Instead we have simply observed parents and evolved offsprings and reached a conclusion of evolution.

Hey, I'm not a lawyer. However, I used to watch Judge Judy every day! Therfore I know just about as much of your State law as much as you do! According to what you say the out of court statements from the victims (or victims witnesses)are admissible, as long as the absence from court was caused by the defendant. Am I right? That's fair.Then also, when arrested there's a speach about everything you say can be used as evidence? That's fair, too, because the defendant is supposed to have first-hand knowledge (but can lie about it, or not be guilty, etc. too).It still does not consider hearsay from anyone who is not a witness as evidence.Edited by Pressie, : SpellingEdited by Pressie, : No reason given.

This: is not the same as:

I'm not completely clear on what you are saying. An out of court statement offered as evidence for the matter asserted in the statement is hearsay (with some specially carved out exceptions). But some hearsay is explicitly allowed in court. And some of the exceptions mentioned above differ from hearsay only because the law says that they are not. But in form they are exactly like all other hearsay.When a lawyer objects in court to a statement being hearsay, his objection is short hand for saying that the statement is hearsay, and is not excused by a legal exception or rule making the hearsay admissible.Confessions are essentially admissible hearsay, but some types of confessions are not admissible without corroborating evidence.

What I was trying to show was that Pressie's 1st claim that "hearsay was never used" was contradicted by his 2nd claim that "hearsay was sometimes used".

If the statement read as follows:any statement about life's origins should be considered as theory, not fact."then I think it is correct. That statement you cited is not about evolution, it is about the orgin of life.
I have been told many times on this board, that the beginning of life and evolution are separate and distinct discplines.I for one am of the opinion that you cannot talk about evolution until you discuss the orgin of life.
How can an organism evolve
unless it has an orgin of life?But if you have to discuss the orgin of life, it is much more difficult to prove your theory of evolution.Edited by shadow71, : No reason given.

The thing is, we're not even willing to give it the status of theory, because theory is a pretty strong statement. It means that it satisfies all evidence and is so compelling that we grant it the tentative status of "best explanation we've come up with yet."So basically, what that statement says is, "{Explanations about} life's origins should be considered as as close to fact as we can get, not fact." The point is, life can evolve regardless of what its origins are. It could have been poofed into existence by God, it could have evolved from non-life, it could have been planted by aliens, etc. Once it got started, though, it has evolved.

How would you see the theory of evolution differing with the following possible origins of life?

a. Some deity poofed life into existence.
b. Some space aliens dropped the starting blocks of life here.
c. Life began from organic chemicals, whether from here or outer space.
d. Life was transferred here by time travelers from the future.
e. Other.

Please specify how (and why) evolution would have to be configured differently under each of these scenarios.Edit: Perdition beat me to it, but my formatting is better.Edited by Coyote, : No reason given.

Close, but two things.First, it should read "hypothesis, not theory" instead of "theory, not fact". 'Cos we wouldn't want to be scientifically illiterate morons, would we?Second, this does not apply to any statement. For example, some people believe that God poofed life into existence about six thousand years ago. This is known to be false, since life is in fact older than this. Not every hypothesis is on the same level of ignorance. Some of them are just wrong, and known to be wrong.So to be accurate we would have to say: "All hypotheses about the origin of life are unproven, and so should not be regarded as theories. However, at least some of them have been conclusively disproven, such as literal belief in the Book of Genesis, which from a scientific point of view must be regarded as a steaming pile of crap."

Well we are all in agreement that all organisms had an origin at some point. You believe that you know how that happened; science is still working on its own ideas.Knowing an origin, doesn't, of course, affect anything about what happens next. If a baby is left on the church steps, with a note saying 'please look after my child,' we can expect it to grow even if we don't know how it got there.Just out of interest, when science has an answer, what will your new reply be?

quote:

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No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life's origins should be considered as theory, not fact." ~Alabama State Board of Education

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Yes, where "think" appears to mean "believe despite how ridiculous and unfounded your conclusion might be."What if we used this logic for other things we accept to be facts?For example:Since, no person on earth was present when the U.S. ceased to be a British colony, any statement about the origin of this country should be considered as theory rather than fact. What difference does it make that people hundreds of years ago were there? They cannot tell us doodly-squat now.Since nobody knows how the moon got into it's present orbit, any predictions of what the phase of the moon will be tonight are mere speculation.Since no witness was present when Nicole Simpson was killed, the civil judgement against OJ for wrongful death is unjustified. We need to teach alternate theories for how Nicole died.Is the flaw in your logic evident or do I need to keep playing this stupid game.Let me speak plainly.First, a theory is not a bunch of speculative hooey. It is no denigration whatsoever that the theory of evolution, the theory of gravity, quantum field theory, are theories. And the fact that they are theories does not open up the door to un-evidenced speculation.Second, we don't need witnesses to teach as theory, without an alternative that atoms exists, that man sequence stars are composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, that OJ did it, etc.I find it difficult to believe that you were able to practice your profession with what passes for logic in the threads you start. I can only believe that this particular topic is not one for which logic holds much sway with you.Frankly, our scientific speculation regarding the origins of life are less than theory, and perhaps less than hypothesis. But what we know about the origin of species is far more substantial, and given the direct contradiction of the origin of species with Genesis, guess what doesn't get taught in science class.

I used "theory" because that is the way Richard Dawkins refers to origin of life speculations. I agree with your description, but would substitute "speculation" for best explanation.
However I don't see how you can equate your "best explanation statement as stating "should be considered as close to fact as we can get.
It is speculation not fact or close to fact. It may be that the way it has evolved may not be as random as evolutionist assume.

If some deity (as you say poofed life into existence), then it may well be that evolution is planned and not random.

I was just using Richard Dawkins description "theories" not speculation as they all are. Some people believe God created life, but not necessarily 6000 years ago.
So I would agree with your last Paragraph if you changed it to include that God may have created life at a time more than 6000 years ago, and we have no proof or factual basis to disprove that hypothesis.