Evolution has been Disproven

Evolution does not require life com from non-life?
Please, then, explain how life came about.-Big Bang: Non-Life
-Today: LifeThe way I see it, Life has to come from Non-Life if evolution is true.

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...it was like that when I got here.

But there is a difference between a plant using nutrients to create more cells and a cell springing up spontaneously from those same nutrients.I would compare it to two people making a baby, and a baby occurring by chance in a vat of hydrocarbons.

I agree - I was just keeping the metaphor simple.(Example: When I use bad metaphors too much, it's like when a baby throws his mashed potatoes at the wall. Only there's more steel involved in the process.)

Applying belief to your everyday world is something everyone does all the time.
Example:
You get up in the morning and slap your alarm clock's Snooze button in the belief that it will turn off and in the belief that someone hasn't replaced it with a contact bomb during the night.
Applying empiricism you would have to run a test on your alarm clock before you hit the snooze. (Past experience is no proof for current situations - scientific process.)The reason people will apply belief to something like the origin of the world is difficult to explain, and I'm no theologist, but I would say it's because I believe it never will be conclusively proven, and I choose to believe in one of the options (Evolution/Creation) because to believe in neither is foolishness.

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if you drop a ball from a building 100 times, and every time it hits the ground, what will happen the 101st time?

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That's the point: you don't know. When you drop the ball that 101st time, who knows? Maybe it will hit a bird. Maybe it will land in the mouth of a pelican. Maybe it will fall down a manhole. Maybe the planet is struck by a passing asteroid and the ball falls up and hits you in the left eye.Previous experience is a good indicator of what might happen, but there is no way to remove every variable in a universe that operates solely on randomness. (Quantum mechanics works almost completely randomly.)Scientific method is trying to reduce the stray chances to a point where you can reasonably assume the result has not been corrupted. However, you will never be able to remove all the variables.I hope I made sense...

Yes, I agree - trust is really, however, hoping the statistics come out in your favor. If there is a 99% chance it will be an alarm clock, then I would trust it to do so. IE, hoping the chances fall into the vary large 99% portion.(Oh and BTW - no I am not afraid of my alarm clock.)

I believe you can prove something to the 99.99%, but you can never prove anything beyond all doubt.My main source of proof for this is the fact that, at the subatomic level, the entire universe is randomness.Even if gravity has been proven 100,000 times, it might just be random atoms striking each other, every time. A slim chance, admitted, but a chance nonetheless.

However, chaos does not beget order. Remember that. No matter what anything or anyone tells you. Even if it is random.
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...and this is one of the founding principles of Scientific Creationists. I don't know what side you have, but it's obvious you're logical.Because even the random things have order.
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This is a contradiction in and of itself. Please explain what you mean - rules, or a discernible pattern? And what random thing are you mentioning?

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"Tentativity" is the word you guys are looking for, and you'll find it embraced by the entire scientific community.
The problem is induction, as I think Amadeus suspects. Repeated successful trials only "prove" a general principle if induction itself is valid; the only evidence that induction is valid is that so far, it always has been. In other words induction can only be proven by induction, and therefore, is circular.

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So we don't really know if induction can prove anything. Thus, anything we prove through induction, that is, empiricism, must be tentative.

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..so what you're saying is that the scientific community is basing its core laws and rules on a system that is based on faith? Sounds a lot like religion to me. (I'm not trying to be uppity, just stating a comparison)

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"Chaos" is not synonymous with "randomness." Randomness can apply to anything. Whether it applies to humans or inanimate objects, no two things have the EXACT same patterns. That's what I mean.
And I hate picking sides.

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Randomness, in and of itself, is unpredictable. You can constrain it, like by generating a random number between 1 and 10, but you can never give it order.Oh and by the way - chaos is just a whole large amount of randomness, so IMHO 'chaos' is synonymous with 'mass randomness'....and elements will always have the exact same patterns. What you mean is that our level of technology is not sufficient to create something large exactly like another one, down to the atom and electrical signals. It's true, but someday won't be.

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I'm sorry, where did I say "faith"? Where did I even imply it?

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Faith is certainty in the absence of evidence.

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Okay, I'll go over this piece by piece.ONE-
As has already been established, there are no true 'facts' when you allow for the inherent randomness of the universe. This means that if the scientific method were followed in its true form, you would never be able to prove anything.Yet scientists all the time have 'proven' new facts or properties. They can not PROVE it, their own scientific limitations prevent it. Instead they eliminate all other scenarios until the chances of them being wrong are very small.HOWEVER - just because the chances are very small does not mean they do not exist. (This has been a mainstay of evolutionary theory for quite a while. Cells, people, stars, all formed by chance. Supposedly.)Therefore, nothing in science can be truly proved. Ever.
Yet people still think atoms, stars, gravity and the like exist. Why? They BELIEVE it exists. They are putting their faith every day into the fact that science is right.Compare this to religion:Religous people put their faith every day into their beliefs.
Scientific people put their faith every day into their beliefs.The only difference is that scientific people modify their beliefs according to experimentation (That, as has been shown already, will not always be accurate) and religious people usually don't modify their beliefs much at all.

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Tentative conclusions that represent the best of our knowledge at the moment? In what way does that sound like religion?

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If your conclusions are so tentative, please explain why you defend evolution so furiously. I mean, it could be wrong, right? So why make such a big deal over some Creationists? After all, the chances of you theory being wrong is about the same as ours.And besides, even if it turns out to be false, what is so abhorrent about believing in something other than pseudo-proven 'scientific' concepts?This message has been edited by Amadameus, 05-06-2005 10:10 AM

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...it was like that when I got here.

Did you read the posts above these? We just spent a whole lot of keystrokes explaining how the inherent randomness of the universe (Refer to any of the 'Alarm Clock' posts) prevents Scientific Method from working.If the chances of an experiment being compromised is one in thirty, you should probably do the experiment again. If the chance is one in a hundred, it's good enough for me to believe.(Compare it to walking on rotten boards. If the chances of it being rotted through is 1/30, I'd hit it with a stick. If the chances were 1/100, I'd be reasonably confident. This is the same with a scientific experiment - the difference is that for it to be SCIENTIFIC, you are supposed to be 100% sure.)Now, if I am right in the above paragraph, that means that every scientific experiment ever done can be chalked up to one huge coincidence. The chances of that is so infinitesimal it's almost nothing, but the chance of it happening is still there.For general, real-world experience, like walking on rotten boards, you would be able to settle for 1/100. However, in a scientific environment, *you*need*to*be*sure*. You can't say that there is a 98% chance your findings are correct - then they're not findings, just experience....and saying, "Because this happened last time, it will happen this time too" is a fallacy. Even if __ happened every time for three hundred times, that just is a strong indicator that the chances are good it will happen again.

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The defense of evolution is actually a defense of science education.

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Well, you should be commended! Someone who defends an unpopular belief constantly for the sake of children must be pure-hearted indeed!Don't tell me you don't have other motives - it's already a known fact that evolutionary psychology can be used to rationalize almost any kind of actions. (I should know, it's tempting to do that myself.)