Why TOE is not accepted

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They want power. They don't care about the truth. What they want is control. Why? Because they think that the world is going downhill morally.

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Hmmm, well, that is true for the leaders, perhaps, but not for the everyday person, I think.I think that for the everyday person who disbelieves evolution for religious reasons it is a simple matter of ignorance combined with ego.The Bible says in Genesis that humans were created 'specially to rule over the earth, yada yada yada.If we evolved "just like everything else" that comes dangerously close to upsetting the religion-based superiority complex that people have been taught.Of course, this is the most simplistic, childish way to read the Bible and requires the most ignorance and fear of knowledge and education from the people in religions which require such reading.It is really no different from the way that the Taliban and other fundamentalist nations like Saudi Arabia require or allow only the teaching of the Quran to children and exclude modern science, mathematics, history, other languages, etc.Hey, that's something that the radical Muslims and the Fundamentalist Christians have in common! They both want to exclude modern science from the schools because it contradicts their religion!You even see many Christians actually doing what our very own Faith advocates; pulling children completely out of public school so they can be protected from dangerous ideas like Biology.This is exactly what other radical religious groups like the Taliban and the Nazi party do if they can.Thank goodness we still have basic educational requirements and standards that are enforced by law. Otherwise I am positive the religious homeschoolers in the US would be producing citizens who could recite entire Bible chapters but wouldn't know the first thing about chemistry, biology or calculus.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-29-2005 07:58 AM

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Laws can be changed. And aren't laws dealing with education state laws, not federal?

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Yes, they are state laws, and I know that that laws can be changed.That's why I said "thank goodness".

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It's easier for you to think that, but most of the people I know that rejected ToE did so primarily due to the evidence, namely the misuse of the evidence by evolutionists and the fact they were taught lies, overstatements, exagerrations, etc,...as facts by evolutionists.

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Most of the people I know who have rejected the ToE does so for religious reasons alone.When questioned, almost to a person, they are ignorant of most of the facts regarding the evidence. Or they are making logic errors.

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I looked into the evidence, and considered that ToE is basically a sham. It does have merit, but it is so overstated and treated in such a quasi-religious manner, that it is as much a cultish ideology as real science, imo.

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Then why do the predictions that Evolutionary Biologists make tend to be borne out just like any other scientific discipline?Is there some kind of conspiracy among hundreds of thousands of scientists over the last 150 years to falsify millions of data points?

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Moreover, mutations are not random either.

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Really?So, we know exactly which and how many children will be borne with genetic diseases?Can I see the data? Please cite some studies.

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What predictions?

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Why don't you start with these?Here's one to get everyone going: This message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-29-2005 04:21 PM

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They are not always borne out, and thus are modified, and though this is similar to other scientific disciplines, the way evolution is taught, believed, and emerged is not very scientific. It really is an unprovable hypothesis.

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You are talking nonsense.This is what you wrote:

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I looked into the evidence, and considered that ToE is basically a sham. It does have merit, but it is so overstated and treated in such a quasi-religious manner, that it is as much a cultish ideology as real science, imo.

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Please show me some citations from the peer-reviewed Evolutionary Biology professional literature that shows that Evolutionary Biology is not conducted within the same basic constraints as any other natural science.For example, please show how Biologists in this particular field do not theorise based upon past observation, do not make predictions, do not do lab experiments or field observations (or both), do not replicate each others' work to make sure the results are reliable, do not submit their work to peer review, do not argue with each other over theory and interpretation of results, etc.IOW, what you must show is that the thousands of Biologists all over the world are all just hacks, and also that the rest of the scientific community ignore this enormous amount of shoddy work.

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As far as how so many scientists could be wrong, history is littered with majority opinions being completely wrong. I see no reason why scientists should be an exception.

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That's not what I said.I asked how could all of the thousands scientists accross the world maintain a fraud considering that the most dramatic and attention-getting way a scientist advances her career in science is to show evidence that allows them to overturn some long-standing understanding or to find something completely new in their field?Thousands of scientists are sham artists, all having secret meetings in which they agree to never contradict each other in order to maintain a lie to the entire world?What are you, crazy?

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In fact, we have clear examples of falsehoods presented as fact by evolutionists, and so their track record indicates mass self-deception has been documented and at work.

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So, because Biologists are not perfect in every way, genetic mutations actually were never observed to produce phenotypic changes?I can show far, far more thick and heavy self-deception (and just plain deception) from the Creation "science" camp, as they have no peer review, no predictions, no experiments, no testable theory.And, you did not comment upon my experience of every single person I have ever dealt with who rejects the ToE has also been a fundamentalist Christian and/or notes their religion as the reason for rejecting it.Why is that?OTOH, I know people of many different religions, including scientists who are devout Christians, who accept the evidence for the ToE.Why is that?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-30-2005 09:23 AM

Do you believe that hundreds of thousands of scientists all over the world are all colluding to present fraudulent information to the public?Yes or no?

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Your snide comments are not appreciated.

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Your incredibly insulting and serious implications that all scientists are liars or incompetent morons are not appreciated.Most of my friends are professional scientists, and I am married to one.Do you even have any idea how incredibly offensive, and defamitory such a remark about the integrity of professional scientists is?When you blithely throw around words like "sham" and "not real science" when describing what they do for a living, what their life's work is, please forgive me if I take you seriously and demand that you show me evidence.

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I and others have answered this before, and clearly have stated otherwise.

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But how else do you explain this widespread idiocy and/or fraud maintained by the entire worldwide scientific community, especially when you know that science careers are built upon showing how other scientists were wrong?If you concede that scientists are not idiots, and they are not maintaining a huge lie by conspiracy, and in fact the nature of professional science is that the ideas and results are constantly being tested, examined, and evaluated just like in every other scientific discipline, then what other reason could there be?

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I do think hundreds of thousands of evolutionists never looked into the data critically for themselves, and were thus in a sense deluded and deluding themselves.

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So, all scientists are morons and are incredibly bad at doing science?I see.Makes perfect sense.Back in my message #105 to you, I asked for a bunch of specific evidence related to your claim that Biology wasn't "real" science, and was a "sham", and as usual, you completely avoided providing any specific examples of what you clearly were claiming.So, I'll repeat my request from that message here.If you do not address them in good faith, I will be asking the moderators to take a look.

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"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."--Thomas JeffersonThere is no greater threat to civil liberties than an efficient government. -jar

Biologists have no problem at all with opponents of evolution who wish to bring some science to the table.Do they have any?

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"Among the Intellectualoids"

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Ah, yes, let the vilification of the smart, educated people begin!

Are you admitting that Creationists are the opposite of "smart, educated people"?

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So they all say, such is the mantra here, and apparently everywhere as the Spectator article affirms. Just define science as anything that arrives at evolution (but don't notice that's what you're doing) and you can effectively silence the creationists.

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No, that's not what happens.Science was around before evolution was figured out, you know.Reverend Segewick and his collegues figured out that the Biblical flood couldn't have happened using science a generation before. The Geologic column was also developed before Darwin.All you need to do science is a falsifiable hypothesis which explains the evidence better than the best current theory, positive evidence in support of your hypothesis, and good scientific methodology.It would be incredibly exciting if Creationists had anything like this to offer, but they haven't so far.

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The article brings out an important question I think: What are the evos afraid of?

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The fear is that religious dogma will replace rational science in public education. The fear is that superstitious ignorance will be legislated over evidence.

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If you're all so committed to science as the way to truth, why are you so worried about letting the creationists have their say in any public arena whatever?

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The Creationists can publish all of the crackpot popular press books they want to allong with the Raelians and the alien abduction folks.If they want to publish in real professional scientific journals, however, they need to up the quality of their work.

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Why wouldn't you just expect that the science would correct the errors?

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The few papers which get submitted, I have read, are often so bad that they never get to the point of being able to be corrected. They are just amateurish, ignorant silliness.You might recal at this point that many real scientific papers submitted by real professional scientists are not accepted for publication. Science is very, very picky. It's got to be very good work, and there are almost always revisions or more research to do before publication is granted. IOW, it's bloody difficult, detailed, strenuous work.

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But they're SO afraid that creationists might mislead the public. How very odd if they have so much faith in science.

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What you are forgetting, Faith, is that while science's purpose is to painstakingly figure out how nature works, Creationists' sole purpose is to mislead the public.Creationists don't spend their time peering through microscopes or doing fiels research. Creationsts spend their time preaching to the science-illiterate masses, trying to get converts.Combine that with the woeful science education most children get in public school and the obvious disdain our current political leaders have for higher education and academia (even though they produce most of the country's technological innovation and medical advances), it's no surprise that our culture distrusts people who are "too smart."No wonder Japan and China are beating us. Their cultures value intellectual acheivement and intelligence. We value simpleminded cowboys.

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I have simply given up on the problem, for the sake of peace and especially for the sake of Christian education: I just think Christian creationists should not fight to get creationism into the public schools but simply leave the schools.

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I think that will create a underclass of science-illiterate religious zealots who can recite passages from the Koran, Bible but won't have the understanding of basic Biology necessary to make informed medical descisions for themselves or their children.

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On the other hand, barring them from presenting their case in any and all public fora is a bit, well, fascistic I would think.

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Would you consider it fascist to treat Flat Earth proponents in the same way?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-31-2005 11:09 AM

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And lost its standards when evolution rolled around.

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How so?Can you please briefly explain what the standards of science were like for, say, Reverend Segewick, Lyell and Galileo compared to when Lamarc and Darwin were proposing their competing theories?

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Now science -- real science, true science -- is done in the service of this gigantic unprovable fairy tale.

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Again, can you please explain what the tenets of "real, true science" are compared to what you say is perhaps "false science"?In particular, I am interested in knowing how the "pre-" and "post-evolution" sets of scientific tenets have affected the reliability of results.For example, are double blind experiments less reliable now than before Darwin?

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You can't "figure out" that something *didn't* happen,
Schraf.

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Sure you can. At least, for all practical purposes, in the real world, we can ignore the fantastical and magical silliness.What do you think forensics is all about?It's about eliminating the unlikely and impossible until all you are left with is the probable and the possible.

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Certainly not when what happened looks like it might be very different from what is now happening, which both evolutionism and creationism believe.

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Not sure what you mean, but everything that happens leaves evidence, Faith. Certainly a worldwide flood would have left evidence. Of course, you can invoke all sorts of magic to explain why the natural history of Earth doesn't look anything like what is recounted in Genesis, but then we have left reality and science and entered religious post-hoc reasoning, AKA apologetics.

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All the most plausible scientific reasoning cannot PROVE or DISPROVE something occurred or didn't occur a certain way in the past.

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Science can't prove anything.But, if you mean that science cannot show a greater or lesser probability of something having happened, then you are dead wrong.That, along with constructing explanitory frameworks to describe how these events occur in concert to produce phenomena, is the essence of science.

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All that's happened is that somebody came up with a very plausible argument.

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...that is supported by 150 years of making millions of specific predictions which have been borne out with a very high degree of accuracy.This isn't just a semantic argument, Faith. There is real physical evidence to support the ToE, as much as you would like to ignore it.

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I've said this a million times but in answer I'm snowed under by all the "proofs" people then trot out to prove me wrong, as if extrapolations from observable geological conditions, or mathematical calculations about the effects of meteors could actually prove something true or false THAT CANNOT BE SUBJECTED TO REPLICATION and TESTING.

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Sure it can.Observations can be and are replicated all the time.Thousands and thousands of different Geologists over the last 200 years observe that the Jurassic geologic layer is always found below the Cretatious and above the Triassic. With very few exceptions, (which are understood) this pattern is NEVER seen deviate.Each scientist who, yet again, observes this ordering of the layers confirms the hypothesis that the Geologic Column describes the history of past geologic activity on Earth.

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The point is that if hypotheses always need correcting when there is the real opportunity of testing them and correcting them, how on earth do scientists get away with declaring something proved that happened in the past that has absolutely NO way of being tested and corrected, validated or falsified?

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Do you reject all forensics?

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There is no such thing as a falsifiable hypothesis about the PAST.

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Huh?So, I can't make a retrodiction about what I might find in a fossil layer if evolution is true?Hypothesis: If evolution is correct, we will find less complex life in the lowest geologic layers and more complex life in the higher layers.Confirmation: We do, indeed, find more complex life in higher layers and less complex life in lower layers.Potential Falsification: If evolution were not true, then there would be no reason to see complex life only in the higher layers and not in lower layers.

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The best you can come up with is a MORE PLAUSIBLE explanation for something than some other explanation, but you CAN'T PROVE IT

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Welcome to science.We can't PROVE anything. There are no certainties, only statistical probabilities. We can't PROVE that the sun is going to rise tomorrow morning, but we can predict with a very high probability that it will.We can't PROVE that a dropped pencil will fall to the floor, but we can predict with a very high probability that it will.We can't PROVE that allele frequencies in populations change over time, but we can predict with a very high probability that they have, and do.

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Creationists have come up with a very reasonable hypothesis about how the geological column was formed,

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It isn't reasonable. It's a very poor hypothesis that ignores much of the evidence.

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but evolutionists use their own plausibilities to shoot them down,

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No, we use evidence found in nature to shoot it down. Reality shoots it down.

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calling their own plausibilities science and the creationists' something else.

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Science is evidence based. Creation science is revelation based. Science begins with all of the evidence and formulates explanations using ALL of the vidence.Creationists start with their desired conclusion and cherry pick the evidence that supports this pre-conceived conclusion and ignore or twist any evidence that is inconvenient.That's why they can't be said to do science.

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But on both sides all that is possible is plausibilities and the ones with the loudest credentials win. I admit that's a bit of a caricature but only a bit.

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Really? Then how was this middle school girl able to get her scientific study published in JAMA if it's all about the credentials?She had no credentials. What she did have, though, is a great experiment and excellent methodology.

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But "science-illiterate?" With all the science programs on TV? It can't be because the information isn't available.

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Most of the science programming on TV is pretty bad. Although I am happy to see that there are shows like Penn and Tellers Bullshit! and Mythbusters starting to come about.To close, I'll just say that I am not in favor of restricting anyone's right to make a speech. The antidote to stupid or wrong speech is always more speech, not less.It is the very obvious goal of the Creationist movement, however, to get their religion taught in public school classrooms, and to gut the Biology curriculum of all of it's real science.I find that to be incredibly dangerous for our future as a free industrialized nation that is increasingly dependent upon sophisticated technology that fewer and fewer of us understand.

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Scientific standards: I explained well enough already. Evolution is an idea that can't be tested or replicated.

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Please explain how the following is invalid as science:Hypothesis: If evolution is correct, we will find less complex life in the lowest geologic layers and more complex life in the higher layers.Confirmation: We do, indeed, find more complex life in higher layers and less complex life in lower layers.Potential Falsification: If evolution were not true, then there would be no reason to see complex life only in the higher layers and not in lower layers.Each scientist who sees this pattern and not a different one, has confirmed the hypothesis again.How many times do we have to explain this to you before you relent?

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Science can. Much science is done in the name of evolution that is true science but evolution itself can't be tested or replicated, proved or falsified. That's what I meant. I think I was pretty clear about it.

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So, we cannot observe that allele frequencies in populations change over time?I think you'll want to tell all the thousands of Population Geneticists that they are actually not doing science.

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I have no doubt there is plenty of evidence of the past. The problem is interpreting it in a way that can be tested.

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It's incredibly simple.You make predictions, based upon the theory, of what you will find.Just like in Forensics.If someone was bludgeoned with a hammer, you will find a particular blood spatter pattern that is different from if they were shot with a gun.If there was a worldwide flood, we would expect to find a particular jumbled up layer of animals and debris over the entire surface of the Earth. If the sediments were layed down gradually over a very long time, we would expect to see things like an orderly advancement of the fossils, no large jumbled debris layer, and also things like inact footprints in cracked earth.

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The past is not testable. Think about it. Yes, forensics is the scientific approach to the past, but it can only produce plausibilities that can't be tested when we're talking about very old events.

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So, very old events don't leave evidence?So, maybe a volcano really didn't bury Pompeii?And about past events not being able to be tested; we can test what kind of blood spatters certain actions make compared to other actions.The hammer splatter vs. the gun splatter, for example. If we know, through experiment, how blood behaves when these different weapons are used, then we can make predictions about what we expect to see to determine what those past events were using reliable results from such experiments.

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The consistencies that are found in the ordering of the geological strata and their fossil contents that can be predicted from past discoveries do not prove evolution.

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Faith.I am going to ask you once and for all to please stop using the word prove when discussing science.It is inappropriate and wrong and I know you are not stupid so do us all a favor and CUT IT OUT.Now, to answer your statement, it's true that the ordering of the Geologic strata alone does not support evolution. That is but one of several dozen seperate lines of evidence from half a dozen scientific fields which all point to evolution.

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They merely prove that there is such a consistency in the geological record, which is already known.

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..and the fossils within those consistent strata show the story of the evolution of life on Earth.Add to that the genetic component along with the radiometric dating (physics) component and the modern observation component and you have a pretty strong case.

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The consistency isn't as perfect as you claim, however, but I won't dispute it at the moment. Even if it were, evolution is merely one plausible explanation for it. There is no way to test it.

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Hypothesis: If evolution is correct, we will find less complex life in the lowest geologic layers and more complex life in the higher layers.Confirmation: We do, indeed, find more complex life in higher layers and less complex life in lower layers.Potential Falsification: If evolution were not true, then there would be no reason to see complex life only in the higher layers and not in lower layers.Each scientist who sees this pattern and not a different one, has confirmed the hypothesis again.

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Not necessarily so. There may be another explanation for the apparent order.

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Like what? Remember, the explanation needs to explain the data better than the current model and be consistent with all known data. I am perfectly willing to consider any hypothesis that meets those requirements. In fact, I would be delighted and excited to hear such a groundbreaking new idea.I'm listening.

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Actually there are plenty of things that science can prove and has proved, as I said.

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Science has never proved anything.Please use the correct terminology.

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You can do this with anything in the present, anything that is observable and replicable.

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So, change in allele frequencies in populations has never been observed in the present?I beg to differ.

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That's what the scientific method is for. That's why civilization has come as far as it has technologically speaking. You CAN set up experiments that can be replicated. The little girl's experiment is replicable. It's about ongoing phenomena that can be tested.

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So, change in allele frequencies in populations has never been observed in the present?

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But you can't with evolution or anything in the past.

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There's no such thing as Archeaology, then?OTOH, just how far into the past is it impossible to test something?10 minutes? 10 days? 10 years?50 years?5,000 years?5,000,000 years?Where exactly is the cutoff of where we can study and where it's impossible, according to you?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-31-2005 05:32 PMThis message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-31-2005 05:37 PM

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Change in allele frequencies only proves ordinary variation within a species, such as in the domestic breeding of animals, not evolution.

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No, that is true between different populations as well.That's how we know that parent species A gave rise to species B and C; we can observe how different the populations are genetically.Lo and behold, the more closely related species, kingdoms, phyla, etc. are, the more similar the DNA is, and vice versa.Why wouldn't this genetic pattern be evidence of common descent?

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That's the old terminology, "variation." It's been co-opted by "evolution" but I prefer the old terminology. Clearer, less tendentious. The principles of breeding are observable and predictable and replicable so it's based on real science.

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So, what is the mechanism that prevents two populations of the same organism, given differetn environmental pressuures, to eventually become two different species given enough generations?Please be specific.

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I've many times said, on this thread too, that real science is done in the name of evolution, but it's too bad as it doesn't need the theory and the theory leads it in wrong directions, but it's nevertheless real science, testable, replicable, provable science.

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Evolution is not.

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Please explain how the following is invalid as science:Hypothesis: If evolution is correct, we will find less complex life in the lowest geologic layers and more complex life in the higher layers.Confirmation: We do, indeed, find more complex life in higher layers and less complex life in lower layers.Potential Falsification: If evolution were not true, then there would be no reason to see complex life only in the higher layers and not in lower layers.Each scientist who sees this pattern and not a different one, has confirmed the hypothesis again.

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Sorry, I like the word "prove" and it's quite accurate for many things.

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It is not accurate to use regarding scientific theories.Would it be OK if I started describing you as a "liar" every time I disagreed with you?Sorry, I like the word "liar" when describing you and it's quite accurate for many things.

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Certainly we can prove things.

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Not in science.

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We prove them all the time.

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Not in science.

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Guess the distance from where you are sitting to a spot opposite you.We can prove if you are right or wrong by measuring it.

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Nope, we can't.Our methods of measurement are not 100% perfectly accurate. We can never be 100% perfect in any measurement. So, we can know to the nearest increment of whatever measure we are using, but we can never be completely, 100% accurate.That's why all scientific stats and results are reported using something called "standard error" or "standard deviation". No results are ever 100% perfect.Furthermore, nothing in science is ever considered to be 100% sure, because we must always keep open the possibility of better information being discovered in the future.

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That's proof, not mere plausibility.

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Nope, that's the best accuracy we can get given our imperfect instruments, but we know it isn't 100% accurate, and never can be.NEVER, EVER can be.

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Various scientists in history proved many things,

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No they didn't.They supported their hypothese with evidence, but they never proved a thing.

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how the blood circulates, the fact that the earth revolves around the sun, the cause of sickness by "germs" and how to protect ourselves from them, that water doesn't get hotter after it reaches the boiling point, and lots of stuff like that.

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Actually, water can get hotter than the boiling point. It can become "super heated" although this was not always known.None of the rest is proven.All of it is very well-supported by the evidence, but none of it is considered 100% correct and infallible.You know, like the idea of super heated water. We didn't always know that this was possible, and we were able to incorporate this new knowledge about the properties of H2O precisely because we do not consider any idea, no matter how well-established, unable to be challenged in the light of new evidence.

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Evolution, and the geo time table, remain interpretations.

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"How the blood circulates, the fact that the earth revolves around the sun, the cause of sickness by "germs" and how to protect ourselves from them, that water doesn't get hotter after it reaches the boiling point, and lots of stuff like that" are also all interpretations of the data.Those interpretations of the data fit all of the known the data best while making the fewest assumptions....and this is exactly what the ToE and Geology does.Can you show me how Biology and in particular Medicine have been hampered by their foundation upon Evolutionary ideas?

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And again, you are exaggerating the consistency of the fossil record. There are exceptions to the rule.

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I never said that the fossil record was perfectly consistent. But there are a few things that strongly point towards common descent being how things happened.For example, why do we find flowering plants only in the upper layers and never in the lower layers?

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You can't PROVE that Pompei was buried under a volcano but certainly there's no other explanation.

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Right. Exactly. You can't PROVE anything in science, but the theory that Pompeii was buried under a volcano is the explanation that fits all of the known evidence best and makes the fewest assumptions....just like the ToE does.

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I have no doubt there is plenty of evidence of the past. The problem is interpreting it in a way that can be tested.

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Not necessarily so. There may be another explanation for the apparent order.

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But you can't with evolution or anything in the past.

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This message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-31-2005 07:51 PM