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There are two funny things: - Evolution itself is pretty much outdated theory. Genetics, biochemistry and ethology are light years beyond Darwin. It is like di

by qwerta 13y ago

There are two funny things: - Evolution itself is pretty much outdated theory. Genetics, biochemistry and ethology are light years beyond Darwin. It is like discussing Copernicus while scientists are working on quantum gravity. - Evolution does not disprove creation and vice versa. God could use evolution as a tool. And God could also create Earth with all those fossils underground just for a joke. :-)

Udo 13y ago
None of these things are funny or true for that matter. > Evolution itself is pretty much outdated theory. Evolution as an abstract model is pretty old, but it's not likely to ever be outdated. To this day, it describes accurately what is going on with any kind of adaptive system, not only in biology but also computer science and information theory, and one could make some convincing arguments for physics as well. > Genetics, biochemistry and ethology are light years beyond Darwin. It's true that Darwin didn't necessarily know much about the inner workings of what he was observing. All he could do is make the actual observations, and reason about them. This led to a key idea about how organisms develop, and it is this idea that became part of the basic tool set of any scientist, it's right up there with Pythagoras and Newton. Genetic and biochemical research didn't really exist in Darwin's time, but the principles he described are found everywhere you look in these fields. And if it hadn't been for Darwin, someone else would have found this out, it became gradually more inescapable the more data we gathered. In fact, today it wouldn't be called much of an achievement at all, since the mechanism is so obvious and ubiquitous whenever you look at bio data. > - God could use evolution as a tool. And God could also create Earth with all those fossils underground just for a joke. Those two are actually somewhat mutually exclusive. Either you believe that some kind of deity "uses" evolution as a tool, at which point people should ask themselves what the point of having gods is if they're not actually doing anything measurable at all. The second point, although you meant it as a joke, is actually harder to argue with - because it leaves reason so far behind it becomes difficult to have any meaningful discussion about it at all: there is nothing in principle to say against the argument that our whole environment and history could be manufactured. We would have no way of knowing that, in fact there would be no way of knowing the actual age of the universe. It could be 2 seconds old in that case. All we have to reason against this approach is an argument from plausibility and Occam's razor.
- qwerta 13y ago
  > Evolution as an abstract model is pretty old, but it's not likely to ever be outdated. But it is outdated. Survival of the fittest is gross oversimplification and it is holding back more complex theories, which could provide better results. Wanna explain how virus interacts with human body? Forget chemistry, you will have to butcher your theory with terms like 'fittest', 'parasite', 'species' and so on. Otherwise nobody will understand it and nobody will publish it. Anyway, I do not live in America, I do not even believe in god, I just find this debate ridiculous.
  - Udo 13y ago
    When scientists today talk about evolutionary processes, that's very different from the way "survival of the fittest" is crammed down the public's throat with animal documentaries and the like. > Forget chemistry, you will have to butcher your theory with terms like 'fittest', 'parasite', 'species' and so on. I'm not sure what you mean by that. Like all fields of knowledge, bio sciences adhere to a certain lingo consensus to express ideas. In some cases, an eventual expansion of the original meaning is inevitable, but if anything I'd actually accuse many science papers of doing the opposite (creating new expressions where none were needed). There is no butchering going on in respect to evolution as a process, though of course there are ongoing conversations about the forces and sub-processes going on in nature. But just because our models aren't complete that doesn't mean we don't have a pretty good idea of what's going on in general. Especially in molecular biology, the theoretical advances and the amount of raw knowledge has been nothing short of staggering in recent years. > Anyway, I do not live in America, I do not even believe in god, I just find this debate ridiculous. That makes your original comment all the more puzzling, I guess. Your post sure seemed to have a religious background.
- cpleppert 13y ago
  >>Those two are actually somewhat mutually exclusive. Either you believe that some kind of deity "uses" evolution as a tool, at which point people should ask themselves what the point of having gods is if they're not actually doing anything measurable at all. That is the most basic methodological problem with Intelligent Design. The claim is that there are gaps where "intelligence" injects itself into the evolution of living things. The funny thing is, every gap is very well hidden and looks exactly like the result of evolutionary processes and builds on the same design patterns that have already been established.
withad 13y ago
What do you mean by "outdated"? Scientific theories don't go off with age, they depend on evidence and the scientific evidence continues to point to evolution as the best theory. Modern biology might be more advanced than it was in Darwin's day but nothing's disproved the fundamental ideas. That's like saying that the discovery of the Higgs boson makes the Earth orbiting the Sun obsolete. And as for your second point, it's true. God could use evolution as a tool. God could hide fossils as a joke. God could just be having fun by letting us build up our quaint little theory of evolution before suddenly dumping a herd of unicorns in the savannah. God could, if he existed, do pretty much anything for any reason completely incomprehensible to us. And that's precisely where creationism falls down as a scientific theory - any flaw is just covered by "maybe God did it just because" and it can't be disproved.
- qwerta 13y ago
  Scientific theories do go off. They should also provide predictions and explanations of unknown events. In modern biology even term 'species' is pretty much outdated. Same way we no longer use Newton equations for space navigation. BTW: Earth does not orbit around sun. It orbits around center of gravity, which is not even inside Sun.
  - cpleppert 13y ago
    The same difficulties with identifying individual species today were faced by Darwin in the Origin of Species. That is in fact exactly what the title of the book refers to. >>BTW: Earth does not orbit around sun. It orbits around center of gravity, which is not even inside Sun. The center of gravity of the sun-earth system is most certainly inside the sun. If it wasn't, the sun would perceptively move as the earth orbited it.
    - Ergomane 13y ago
      The center of gravity of the entire solar system (the solar barycenter) wanders around and is currently located inside the star. It will be outside of the sun in 2017. Jupiter, Neptune (edit: and Uranus) serve to create a giant spirograph.
toasterlovin 13y ago
"Evolution itself is pretty much outdated theory." No, it is not. It continues to bear rich fruit to this day. Actually, since Darwin's conclusions in On the Origin of Species remain largely intact to this day, their age makes them better, not worse.

by qwerta 13y ago

Udo 13y ago

None of these things are funny or true for that matter. > Evolution itself is pretty much outdated theory. Evolution as an abstract model is pretty old, but it's not likely to ever be outdated. To this day, it describes accurately what is going on with any kind of adaptive system, not only in biology but also computer science and information theory, and one could make some convincing arguments for physics as well. > Genetics, biochemistry and ethology are light years beyond Darwin. It's true that Darwin didn't necessarily know much about the inner workings of what he was observing. All he could do is make the actual observations, and reason about them. This led to a key idea about how organisms develop, and it is this idea that became part of the basic tool set of any scientist, it's right up there with Pythagoras and Newton. Genetic and biochemical research didn't really exist in Darwin's time, but the principles he described are found everywhere you look in these fields. And if it hadn't been for Darwin, someone else would have found this out, it became gradually more inescapable the more data we gathered. In fact, today it wouldn't be called much of an achievement at all, since the mechanism is so obvious and ubiquitous whenever you look at bio data. > - God could use evolution as a tool. And God could also create Earth with all those fossils underground just for a joke. Those two are actually somewhat mutually exclusive. Either you believe that some kind of deity "uses" evolution as a tool, at which point people should ask themselves what the point of having gods is if they're not actually doing anything measurable at all. The second point, although you meant it as a joke, is actually harder to argue with - because it leaves reason so far behind it becomes difficult to have any meaningful discussion about it at all: there is nothing in principle to say against the argument that our whole environment and history could be manufactured. We would have no way of knowing that, in fact there would be no way of knowing the actual age of the universe. It could be 2 seconds old in that case. All we have to reason against this approach is an argument from plausibility and Occam's razor.

qwerta 13y ago
> Evolution as an abstract model is pretty old, but it's not likely to ever be outdated. But it is outdated. Survival of the fittest is gross oversimplification and it is holding back more complex theories, which could provide better results. Wanna explain how virus interacts with human body? Forget chemistry, you will have to butcher your theory with terms like 'fittest', 'parasite', 'species' and so on. Otherwise nobody will understand it and nobody will publish it. Anyway, I do not live in America, I do not even believe in god, I just find this debate ridiculous.
- Udo 13y ago
  When scientists today talk about evolutionary processes, that's very different from the way "survival of the fittest" is crammed down the public's throat with animal documentaries and the like. > Forget chemistry, you will have to butcher your theory with terms like 'fittest', 'parasite', 'species' and so on. I'm not sure what you mean by that. Like all fields of knowledge, bio sciences adhere to a certain lingo consensus to express ideas. In some cases, an eventual expansion of the original meaning is inevitable, but if anything I'd actually accuse many science papers of doing the opposite (creating new expressions where none were needed). There is no butchering going on in respect to evolution as a process, though of course there are ongoing conversations about the forces and sub-processes going on in nature. But just because our models aren't complete that doesn't mean we don't have a pretty good idea of what's going on in general. Especially in molecular biology, the theoretical advances and the amount of raw knowledge has been nothing short of staggering in recent years. > Anyway, I do not live in America, I do not even believe in god, I just find this debate ridiculous. That makes your original comment all the more puzzling, I guess. Your post sure seemed to have a religious background.
cpleppert 13y ago
>>Those two are actually somewhat mutually exclusive. Either you believe that some kind of deity "uses" evolution as a tool, at which point people should ask themselves what the point of having gods is if they're not actually doing anything measurable at all. That is the most basic methodological problem with Intelligent Design. The claim is that there are gaps where "intelligence" injects itself into the evolution of living things. The funny thing is, every gap is very well hidden and looks exactly like the result of evolutionary processes and builds on the same design patterns that have already been established.

withad 13y ago

What do you mean by "outdated"? Scientific theories don't go off with age, they depend on evidence and the scientific evidence continues to point to evolution as the best theory. Modern biology might be more advanced than it was in Darwin's day but nothing's disproved the fundamental ideas. That's like saying that the discovery of the Higgs boson makes the Earth orbiting the Sun obsolete. And as for your second point, it's true. God could use evolution as a tool. God could hide fossils as a joke. God could just be having fun by letting us build up our quaint little theory of evolution before suddenly dumping a herd of unicorns in the savannah. God could, if he existed, do pretty much anything for any reason completely incomprehensible to us. And that's precisely where creationism falls down as a scientific theory - any flaw is just covered by "maybe God did it just because" and it can't be disproved.

qwerta 13y ago
Scientific theories do go off. They should also provide predictions and explanations of unknown events. In modern biology even term 'species' is pretty much outdated. Same way we no longer use Newton equations for space navigation. BTW: Earth does not orbit around sun. It orbits around center of gravity, which is not even inside Sun.
- cpleppert 13y ago
  The same difficulties with identifying individual species today were faced by Darwin in the Origin of Species. That is in fact exactly what the title of the book refers to. >>BTW: Earth does not orbit around sun. It orbits around center of gravity, which is not even inside Sun. The center of gravity of the sun-earth system is most certainly inside the sun. If it wasn't, the sun would perceptively move as the earth orbited it.
  - Ergomane 13y ago
    The center of gravity of the entire solar system (the solar barycenter) wanders around and is currently located inside the star. It will be outside of the sun in 2017. Jupiter, Neptune (edit: and Uranus) serve to create a giant spirograph.

toasterlovin 13y ago

"Evolution itself is pretty much outdated theory." No, it is not. It continues to bear rich fruit to this day. Actually, since Darwin's conclusions in On the Origin of Species remain largely intact to this day, their age makes them better, not worse.