Evolution - A Fact AND a Theory

Here's something for all of my fundamentalist Christian friends, who keep trying to tell me "there is no evidence to support the theory of evolution", to read....

EVOLUTION - A FACT AND A THEORY

Biologists consider the existence of biological evolution to be a fact. It can be demonstrated today and the historical evidence for its occurrence in the past is overwhelming.

Comments

[Phillip Molly Malone]

Evolution! That God is a tricky one, isn't he to create Evolution (all that in 6 days too)? ;-)
Molly

[Trevor Cook]

Of course, there is overwhelming evidence in support of evolution. In science, nothing is ever proven absolutely every thing is a theory in case some evidence turns up in the future that requires a new, or adapted, theory. There is currently no evidence that counters the theory of evolution, that is no known facts that cannot be explained within the current theoretical framework.
Gravity is also a theory - show the world an apple that falls upwards and this theory is also out the window.
What also needs to be said that evolution does not disprove the existence of God, nor that a divine being created the world and everything in it. It only cautions against a too literal interpretation of the Bible.
To my mind the process of evolution, and natural selection, is a remarkable and beautiful mechanism. As beautiful as the laws of physics and chemistry. The existince of these theories can be seen as an insight into the divine I think.
Really this evolution vs god debate is absurd.

[Cameron Reilly]

Trevor, I agree with you. I don't care whether people believe in a "god" or not. To each his own. What annoys me is when people start telling me that there is "no evidence to support the theory of evolution". Where do they get this stuff from?

[Tony]

Evolution is a lot easier to believe than "God" created the earth. Did also create all the other planets, stars, comets and everything else in our galaxy as well the rest of the universe.

Show me some scientific evidence that there could be a God then I may become a believer. Until that date it is a theory made up by some nuts thousands of years ago to justify wars.

[phil]

We need to be careful not to confuse belief in God and the anti-evolution camp. The creationist camp is far removed from me and my belief - the only thing we have in common is that we both believe in God.

There are Christians who think the religion v's God debate is alive - which is a pity as it is long gone and was always a silly debate. The only reason it existed was about power.

There are other Christians for whom the "truth" in the genesis account is not about the way the world was created and can comfortably let the sceintists lead the way in our understandings of the beginnings of the world.

[Cameron Reilly]

yeah Phil, but you're one of the good Christians. :-)

Actually the creationism v evolution debate is very much alive in the US. Wasn't GWB recently saying he wanted "intelligent design" taught in schools over there? Scary...

[phil]

Yeah I know Cameron.. There are some Australian Christians who also wanted intelligent design taught in australia too.

Scary indeed!

[Cameron Reilly]

And I have no problem with schools teaching intelligent design as part of a religious education course. The thing that really worries me is when I meet intelligent, articulate people who deny the fundamental premise of scientific method as the only logical process by which we attempt to construct an accurate representation of the universe(s).

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.

2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.

3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.

4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.

[phil]

have you see this article in the Guardian

Here is a bit I liked

“It sounds so reasonable, doesn’t it? Such a modest proposal. Why not teach “both sides” and let the children decide for themselves? As President Bush said, “You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes.” At first hearing, everything about the phrase “both sides” warms the hearts of educators like ourselves.
One of us spent years as an Oxford tutor and it was his habit to choose controversial topics for the students’ weekly essays. They were required to go to the library, read about both sides of an argument, give a fair account of both, and then come to a balanced judgment in their essay. The call for balance, by the way, was always tempered by the maxim, “When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly half way between. It is possible for one side simply to be wrong.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1559743,00.html

[phil]

sorry posted wrong bit - take two

“Intelligent design is not an argument of the same character as these controversies. It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. In those cases, the demand for equal time for “both theories” would be ludicrous. Similarly, in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened?”

[Bob M]

Phil, I liked that Guardian article too. I thought the authors' credentials were impressive too:

"Richard Dawkins is Charles Simonyi professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University, and Jerry Coyne is a professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago."

My elder brother went to a Chrisitan Brothers' secondary school in the 1960's and I recall him saying that he was taught there that it didn't matter how you believed man came into being in his present form, so long as you believed that God put a soul into man somewhere during the process.

I think for non-creationist Christians that could be a good guideline.

[Cameron Reilly]

wow, Dawkins? He was da man for a while there, until his grey goo theory of evolution got overturned by the probability guys. And Simonyi has his own chair at Oxford?? Cool. He was one of the early guys at Microsoft, from 81 - 02. Was even Chief Architect for a while there.

As for the "soul" idea, I've always found that interesting. I've asked many Christians to define it for me and no-one has ever been successful. It seems to be a concept that has no definition, no description, no-one has any evidence to support it, yet people seem to believe that it exists.

[Bob M]

That's why those that have it, call it faith.

[Mark Penta]

So here are my dumb random questions:

1. Why can't evolution be what "God" is doing?

2. Why do I feel like my "soul" is attracted to some people more than others--almost in a "we've known each other in a past life" sort of way?

3. To me there's no question that there is some bizarre Intelligence going on here. As an artist I see that the veins in my arm look like the branches of a tree and the rivers that twist and bend from an airplane view. That THING that beats my heart without my help, etc.

4. How does evolution explain synchronicity? When I think of my friend and she calls that very next second?

And these are the things I ponder...

[Tony]

That's easy to answer...there is no "God".

[Cameron Reilly]

Mark, all good questions.
1) Evolution "could" be what "god" is doing - it could also be the workings of a tiny little African green tree frog called Jeremy who walks with a slight limp and likes English Breakfast tea. Neither of these theories, however, has any evidence to support it (that I know of anyway).
2) Can you define this "soul" you say is attracted to people? Before we can explain what's happening here, you need to define your terms. I suspect my shrink would say it has a lot to do with your limbic system however.
3) The "thing" that beats your heart is called your brain. And, as it turns out, the brain is quite simple in its architecture. Some chemicals, some electrical impulses, some fairly slow carbon-based transmitters. PCs will out-pace the human brain within 30 years. The similatiry between veins, trees, etc has a lot to do with the way simple cellular automata rules govern the development of complex systems. (see Wolfram: New Kind Of Science).
4) As for synchronocity, what about the times you think about your friend and she DOESN'T call? Probability theory?

[Phillip Molly Malone]

Hey Cam,
You could argue everything is proof of God! You may say that the universe was created from dust, yadda yadda yadda, but where did the dust come from?

To be honest, if there is or isn't a god isn't important, what is important is that we are good to each other. If you only do that because you think that god will punish you if you don't, then so be it!

Molly

[Andy Merrett]

"Show me some scientific evidence that there could be a God then I may become a believer. Until that date it is a theory made up by some nuts thousands of years ago to justify wars."

Yeah nice one Tony - let's mix real belief in something with people who use the name of religion to justify their wars.

[Tony]

Well maybe I am a tad cynical. The comment about the religious wars was prob over the line and I apologise to any that may have offended.

My other comment that requiring proof still stands though.