Evolution is not a scientific theory

[annielaurie]

FD,

Evolution is the best hypothesis science has today to explain nature and the diversity of life on earth, and how everything got here.

It is backed up by mountains of evidence and an uncountable number of proven facts. Scienctific method has been proven to work, get the same results over and over, things are considered proven facts.

For instance, we know that the speed of light in a vacuum is a cosmological constant, and never changes: by using that universal speed limit cosmologists can determine distances and also measurements of time. That is just one of many things.

Are you religious? Do you have some other belief system preventing you from understanding the way science works? From your comments it looks to me like you are mixed up about the way modern science works.

Give me science any day. It is through the science diciplines that we learn about our origins, and how reality works.

[Super Nova]

It's hard to believe in this day and age that many people don't get it about evolution, both macro and micro (natural selection)

I get the theory. I am just saying it isn't scientific.

It is scientific. It is a theory that has been peer reviewed and stood up to challenge. There is no conflictin evidence that destroys the theory. All evidence supports the theory. Now much more scientific can you get.

You seem to have a different definition of "scientific" to the whole scientific community. What is you definition?

A scientific Theory is an hypothesis, already backed up by a mountain of proven facts.

There is no such thing as a 'proven fact' in science. They all end up being disproven.

Utter rubbish. Hardy worth a response.

Gravity is a theory: the Theory of Gravity. It is still called that.

It wasn't in my high school physics textbook.

You should have stidied harder. We were all taught "Newton's theory of "Universal Gravitation""

F=MA... replace A with G and you have the beginning.

The Formula for the Force of Gravity
Newton rightly saw this as a confirmation of the "inverse square law". He proposed that a "universal" force of gravitation F existed between any two masses m and M, directed from each to the other, proportional to each of them and inversely proportional to the square of their separation distance r. In a formula (ignoring for now the vector character of the force):

F = G mM/r2
Suppose M is the mass of the Earth, R its radius and m is the mass of some falling object near the Earth's surface. Then one may write

F = m GM/R2 = m g
From this

g = GM/R2
The capital G is known as the constant of universal gravitation. That is the number we need to know in order to calculate the gravitational attraction between, say, two spheres of 1 kilogram each. Unlike the attraction of the Earth, which has a huge mass M, such a force is quite small, and the number G is likewise very, very small. Measuring that small force in the lab is a delicate and difficult feat.

We all learned this stuff. or should have.

As for the origin of the universe, the singularity that suddenly inflated (no explosion, it was a smooth and soundless expanding, like a balloon blowing up)

It would have burst your eardrums if you had heard it. It would have also burst your head into subatomic particles.

Now I know your takign the piss.

This is a large system full of chaos so making precise prediction is diffult. However there are many things that are predicatable based on probabilities.

They are commonly referred to as natural selection. Can you predict when a beneficial mutation will happen?

That's the issue, a mutation is a random event. Can you predicit exactly when the ball will fall on 00 on a roulette table.. no ... but you know the odds.

The timescales are long..... the evironment is not predicatable.... the process is though

Making predictions is not enough. You have to be able to actually test them.

If you can. That's why we have tested most theories in physics. We are now at the stage where we have to build even more complex devices to test e.g. CERN. If you cannot test directly you can validate by observing the universe... it's like one grerat big test rig... in realtime. If you observe it as predicted, you have validated an aspect of the theory.

In practise they are not opposites. Science seeks the truth. A theory can be proven wrong the moment we see a result that is not predicted/expected or the evidence goes against the theory. It generally needs a tweek or needs a full new thoery.

Eventually the entire paradigm must be discarded and replaced with a better one. That means it is not true. It is by being proven wrong over and over again that science is so powerful.

I get your point. I think it is the more we have a deeper understanding the detail has to be refined. We find the deeper thruth... for now until something is revealed that force this refinement. There is power in being open to correction.

They don't need to be forgiven for attributing it to a beneficial mutation... because they are. They have benefited from their relationship with man.

It is the mutation bit I was pointing out, not the benefit. Natural selection is also beneficial, but does not require mutation.

True, it doesn't require mutation. However major leaps occur when there is a mutation that give an advantage.

For your aguement to stand you must assume that all live has the same DNA. It doesn't... We evolved from simplier liveforms by mutation and natural selection eliminated those that were not to survive.

It would be falsified if there was evidence that contradicted the theory.

So would my theory that unicorns die if you impale them with their own horns. That doesn't make the theory 'falsifiable' from a scientific perspective.

The burden of proof rest with you to prove there are unicorns. The burden of proof is for you to prove there is a god. Not this nonsense that the scientific community has to prove there is no god or unicorns.

Absence of proof does not mean there are no unicorns because they are magical beings and could hide from us. However without any evidence of their existence I would challenge your theory because it is not based on any observation in the real world.

[Super Nova]

modern science works.

Give me science any day. It is through the science diciplines that we learn about our origins, and how reality works.

Yep....

[freediver]

Evolution is the best hypothesis science has today to explain nature and the diversity of life on earth, and how everything got here

That does not make it scientific either. Do theories cease being scientific once they are disproven? Was creationism scientific before evolution came along?

It is backed up by mountains of evidence and an uncountable number of proven facts.

This does not make it scientific either.

Scienctific method has been proven to work, get the same results over and over, things are considered proven facts.

Not by actual scientists.

For instance, we know that the speed of light in a vacuum is a cosmological constant, and never changes

Are you sure about that?

Give me science any day. It is through the science diciplines that we learn about our origins, and how reality works.

You don't appear to know what science is.

SN:

It is scientific. It is a theory that has been peer reviewed and stood up to challenge.

If I told my peers about my unicorn theory, would that make it scientific? You for example cannot disprove it. Does that make it scientific?

There is no conflictin evidence that destroys the theory.

Can you find any evidence to disprove my unicorn theory?

You seem to have a different definition of "scientific" to the whole scientific community. What is you definition?

http://www.ozpolitic.com/evolution/scie ... ology.html

Utter rubbish. Hardy worth a response.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact#Fact_in_science

Consistent with the theory of confirmation holism, some scholars assert "fact" to be necessarily "theory-laden" to some degree. Thomas Kuhn points out that knowing what facts to measure, and how to measure them, requires the use of other theories. For example, the age of fossils is based on radiocarbon dating which is justified by reasoning that radioactive decay follows a Poisson process rather than a Bernoulli process. Similarly, Percy Williams Bridgman is credited with the methodological position known as operationalism, which asserts that all observations are not only influenced, but necessarily defined by the means and assumptions used to measure them.

You should have stidied harder. We were all taught "Newton's theory of "Universal Gravitation""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s ... ravitation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Now I know your takign the piss.

What exactly is your conception of the big bang?

That's the issue, a mutation is a random event. Can you predicit exactly when the ball will fall on 00 on a roulette table.. no ... but you know the odds.

Do you know the odds of a beneficial mutation occurring within a given time frame? Would you disprove the theory of evolution if they did not happen?

We are now at the stage where we have to build even more complex devices to test e.g. CERN.

Were we ever at a different stage?

If you cannot test directly you can validate by observing the universe...

Observational analysis is a rational precursor to empirical testing, but not a scientific substitute.

I get your point. I think it is the more we have a deeper understanding the detail has to be refined.

Until it all gets thrown out. For example, many people consider relativity to be a refinement of newtonian mechanics, perhaps because of the way it is usually introduced. It is not. All concepts of newtonian mechanics are replaced. Mass, distance, time etc are not the same thing.

True, it doesn't require mutation. However major leaps occur when there is a mutation that give an advantage.

This is the distinction between the scientific theory of natural selection and the broader theory of eovlution.

For your aguement to stand you must assume that all live has the same DNA. It doesn't...

It does. That is why you can call it the same thing - DNA. Though I have no idea why you think I am assuming this.

The burden of proof rest with you to prove there are unicorns.

No it doesn't. I am arguing that there aren't. When you impale them, they disappear into a puff of glitter.

The burden of proof is for you to prove there is a god.

Why would I need to prove there is a god to be able to kill unicorns?

Not this nonsense that the scientific community has to prove there is no god or unicorns.

The theory is that if you impale a unicorn with it's own horn, it dies. This would be true regardless of the existence of god or unicorns.

Absence of proof does not mean there are no unicorns because they are magical beings and could hide from us. However without any evidence of their existence I would challenge your theory because it is not based on any observation in the real world

What about whether it is scientific? You seem confused about the topic.

[IQS.RLOW]

Freeloader, do you accept the theory of evolution or do you accept the theory of creationism?

[freediver]

IQ when I say it is not scientific I am not saying it is wrong. Quite the opposite. I think the transformative power of scientific theories is that they are wrong and will be proven wrong. This is a totally separate question from whether creationism is wrong or right or whether it is a scientific theory. Being the best available explanation does not make something scientific. The wrongness of one theory says nothing at all about the value of another.

[IQS.RLOW]

Why not answer the question?

[Mattus]

Why not answer the question?

Because its an idiotic question?

[IQS.RLOW]

Why not answer the question?

Because its an idiotic question?

Yours was. Mine wasn't.

Did you notice that he avoided it?

[Mattus]

I noticed he just got through carefully explaining how scientific theories are testable and may be supported by or rejected by evidence arising from experimentation. That neither evolution or creation can be directly tested by science. I noticed him carefully differentiating natural selection, which as been tested and upheld ( if not proven, simply because scientists avoid the term proof) from evolution. Your response was along the lines of "tl, dr so which ideology to you blindly follow?"