Polling Friday: Do you believe in Evolution?

[Ramor]

As far as modern science is concerned (to my understanding) everything is simply a theory seeing as you can't actually prove anything, you can only prove it to a reasonable amount.

Take for instance Newton's "laws" of physics, they fail to hold true (theoretically) at 'massive velocities', meaning anything that would approach the speed of light. While at the time it was essentially always true, they just had no way of knowing about the other possibilities due to limitations in technology.

All Tesai is saying is basically the above, he just won't accept every single bit because something like evolution would require observations not (generally) attainable via one human lifecycle, or even a few cycles.

That being said, I voted yes and have no real objections to it.

[Rammses]

I don't believe in god, so if your gonna come at me with some stupid fucking jesus/mohommad comment go stick your head up your ass and breathe deeply for a few minutes.

I didn't even imply that, but at least you took the bait.

People keep talking about evolution as if it is a law when its thoery. I believe in evolution, but I do bot believe in every last detail of what many people do.

There's a huge difference between not believing in every last detail and not believing in macro evolution.

Even the most prestigious evolution researcher will tell you that the main concepts of evolution itself change all of the time as they find new evidence to support each change.

Yeah, and that's the very nature of scientific theories. It doesn't mean you can't believe in theories. It seems like your crazy idea that nothing can be held for true unless you see it with your own eyes is based on your misunderstanding of certain words, or the arbitrary nature of them. Believing in something presented as theory is different to believing in something presented as fact. It means you believe in a concept based on the facts and information available, or it can mean that you believe it's the most reasonable description of reality available, even if it's incomplete. It varies with context and even personal interpretation. You don't even seem to be consistent with your own definition of belief, unless you're including yourself in the "retards of blind faith" category.

There is NO proof of any of this shit people have been spewing on this forum, there is little evidence but it actually "proves" nothing. Everyone who thinks they know that this is the way it is one way or the other is a fucking retard, end of story. You cannot state any theory as fact until it becomes law. If all of this shit was "proven" as people say then it would be well known and stated as such. Most of the documentation, interviews, and lectures about this so called proof is riddled with "could be", "may have", and "possibly" for a fucking reason. And no it isn't because the crispies would complain, or the south might start an uprising. It's because the scientists and researchers.... DON'T KNOW FOR SURE.

It's not black or white; there is no absolute proof. Everything is based more or less on assumptions; the point where something is considered proof is decided arbitrarily, which is why science is based on theories and models.

And that's all I've been trying to communicate is that I don't know, and that's why I'm not going to buy into every bit of evolution. I'll continue to believe in what I know, the rest of you can continue to believe in what you think is known. Show me hard evidence that species evolve from one to the next and I'll believe it. Until then, I'll just take it into consideration... I was raised with this crazy notion called thinking for yourself.

Except you're the one jumping on people, calling them retards, based on your own poor understanding of words you're not even consitent with.

[Tristam]

I don't believe in god, so if your gonna come at me with some stupid fucking jesus/mohommad comment go stick your head up your ass and breathe deeply for a few minutes.

People keep talking about evolution as if it is a law when its thoery. I believe in evolution, but I do bot believe in every last detail of what many people do. Even the most prestigious evolution researcher will tell you that the main concepts of evolution itself change all of the time as they find new evidence to support each change.

There is NO proof of any of this shit people have been spewing on this forum, there is little evidence but it actually "proves" nothing. Everyone who thinks they know that this is the way it is one way or the other is a fucking retard, end of story. You cannot state any theory as fact until it becomes law. If all of this shit was "proven" as people say then it would be well known and stated as such. Most of the documentation, interviews, and lectures about this so called proof is riddled with "could be", "may have", and "possibly" for a fucking reason. And no it isn't because the crispies would complain, or the south might start an uprising. It's because the scientists and researchers.... DON'T KNOW FOR SURE.

And that's all I've been trying to communicate is that I don't know, and that's why I'm not going to buy into every bit of evolution. I'll continue to believe in what I know, the rest of you can continue to believe in what you think is known. Show me hard evidence that species evolve from one to the next and I'll believe it. Until then, I'll just take it into consideration... I was raised with this crazy notion called thinking for yourself.

Evolution doesn't work in proofs, and a prediction of evolution is that it would be impossible to empirically observe it in the way you describe. Yet we can observe genetics, and comparative genomics, which backs up evolution in ways you don't seem to understand. Genetics is the best "proof" of evolution, it would just be absurd to have genetics work the way it does without evolution. Also, theories do not become laws, and one is not more powerful than the other. We do not know the mechanism responsible for things like gravity that involve action at a distance, but that dosen't mean if I throw a baseball it won't behave in a predictable manner. Thats what evolution does, it makes testable predictions that are borne out in genetics, physiology, and even sexual selection.

As an exercise, think about this. You want to think in terms of generating entirely new species with arbitrarily different forms. Fish vs lion etc. Transmutation or whatever. There must, obviously, be a mechanism for new species to arise. With the abundance of fossil evidence, we now know that > 99.9% of all species on earth have gone extinct. There is no reasonable way to think that all species that ever existed could have coinhabited this planet at the same time, so there is obviously a flux of new and dying species. If not evolution, then what is the mechanism for this change? There is, currently, no evidence to support anything other than evolution for the diversity of forms. This is one of the clues (based on Darwin's study of economics) that got him thinking in terms of evolution and that the forms of life on earth could not possibly be static.

Also humans most definately have changed in our history. We have, in our DNA, the remains of genes long since dead due to mutation. These genes (still working) are also found in our closest relatives the apes. Based on known mutation rates of a particular myosin gene, we can make predictions about when these genes were "turned off" and lo, it corresponds very well with changes in the fossil record. This is why evolution works, it makes testable predictions and explains nature.

[Weeks]

You cannot state any theory as fact until it becomes law.

Your high school science textbooks were written by idiots. Theories do not become laws, they remain theories, no matter how much proof backs them. A law describes what we observe, a theory explains why what we observe happens.

[thatwasnifty]

Read Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True and stfu. He has a whole chapter about speciation, how it works, and instances of it actually being observed.

[kuronosan]

I don't believe in god, so if your gonna come at me with some stupid fucking jesus/mohommad comment go stick your head up your ass and breathe deeply for a few minutes.

Belief is not what is held to be true. Belief is what is theorized to be true as a personal conviction.

Source: Merriam-Webster

1. a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing
2. something believed ; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group
3. conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence

It has nothing to do with absolute truth, it is an opinion on what may be the truth.

People keep talking about evolution as if it is a law when its thoery. I believe in evolution, but I do bot believe in every last detail of what many people do. Even the most prestigious evolution researcher will tell you that the main concepts of evolution itself change all of the time as they find new evidence to support each change.

They call it the theory of evolution for a reason. Laws govern what are observed in experimental procedure. Theories are statements that propose why that particular law exists, such as the law of gravity and not the theory of gravity. Laws of Physics and Theory of Ballistic Nature are two separate concepts that are closely related.

I study genetics pretty deeply and if you believe anything other than evolution as a certainty then you're pretty narrow minded. The reason why evolution is so hard to observe in organisms people care about is because large organisms take a longer time to evolve since they live much longer. Take a look at small organisms such as flies or bacteria and you'll see much more evolutionary evidence. They can't find evidence because it takes so long to gather it. It takes longer to observe it which is something that will never happen in your lifetime or my lifetime.

There is NO proof of any of this shit people have been spewing on this forum, there is little evidence but it actually "proves" nothing. Everyone who thinks they know that this is the way it is one way or the other is a fucking retard, end of story.

I won't get into semantics, but just this statement alone reeks of hypocrisy. You state that nobody has any proof of any shit that they state on this board yet you claim that everyone who thinks they have proof is a retard as if you have proof of the contrary. Shut the fuck up. Prove that I was being an asshole just then.

You cannot state any theory as fact until it becomes law. If all of this shit was "proven" as people say then it would be well known and stated as such. Most of the documentation, interviews, and lectures about this so called proof is riddled with "could be", "may have", and "possibly" for a fucking reason. And no it isn't because the crispies would complain, or the south might start an uprising. It's because the scientists and researchers.... DON'T KNOW FOR SURE.

You can't ever state any theory as fact. That's why they're called theories. Even scientists don't know LAWS for sure. Laws are meant to be broken are based completely off of a hypothesis. Theories are ideas as to why those laws may or may not exist. Scientific hypotheses are based completely off of what can and can't be observed.

And that's all I've been trying to communicate is that I don't know, and that's why I'm not going to buy into every bit of evolution. I'll continue to believe in what I know, the rest of you can continue to believe in what you think is known. Show me hard evidence that species evolve from one to the next and I'll believe it. Until then, I'll just take it into consideration... I was raised with this crazy notion called thinking for yourself.

Have you read a single book on phylogenetics? If you haven't, maybe you should shut the fuck up and stop thinking for yourself. I'm not in favor of terrorists, but clearly it isn't working too well for you.

There is plenty of hard evidence that species evolve from one to the next. You're too ignorant and wet behind the ears to have bothered to research any of it.