Reasons To Doubt Evolution

[WinePusher]

In another thread a user asked for reasons to doubt evolution and, after thinking about the topic, I managed to come up with 3 objections to evolutionary theory:

1. Darwinian evolutionary theory fails to make precise, quantitative predictions. Generally speaking, a typical requirement for legitimate science is that a theory must produce precise, specific, quantitative predictions that will either bear out or falsify the theory itself. Darwinian evolutionary theory lacks this, as it only makes imprecise, abstract, qualitative predictions. Indeed, Stephen Jay Gould suggested that if all of natural history were rewound the mechanism of natural selection wouldn't produce the same species we have now.

2. The fossil record is highly discontinuous and many transitional sequences are nonexistent. Ideally, for evolutionary theory to be completely tight and sound there should be a wide array of transitional forms for every single major morphological change. The fossil record clearly lacks this.

3. Computer simulations of Darwinian evolutionary theory have yet to be successful. Inputting an appropriate algorithm into a computer is something that is done even in upper level undergrad university courses, and it is done to simulate and replicate a continuous process. It appears that attempts at encoding Darwinian mechanisms into an algorithm and inputting them into a computer have failed to yield successful results. I'm don't know much about this particular topic so input from biology experts would be extremely helpful.

Biology isn't my field so I would like to hear some input from other users (preferably those who have actually had academic training in biology like nygreenguy). Is there any truth to these three points?

[Jashwell]

Including the two arguments that RELY ON THE BIG BANG THEORY BEING TRUE

I don't have a problem with the big bang theory but do have a problem with the theory of the universe creating itself.

Can you explain the problem with loop quantum gravity?
If you can disprove loop quantum gravity (in which case you could probably get a nobel prize or at least some serious recognition) then how about all the other theories that don't rely on the Universe creating itself?

[sizzle-d]

Can you explain the problem with loop quantum gravity?

For?

If you can disprove loop quantum gravity (in which case you could probably get a nobel prize or at least some serious recognition)

Not that interested considering the fact that the big bang needed something to create the things to bang and create gravity because gravity didn't exist.

then how about all the other theories that don't rely on the Universe creating itself?

Who was talking about them?

[sizzle-d]

[quote="Jashwell"]
In case my above post isn't clear (or unintelligible and since i can't edit), let me rephrase.
For the big bang to occur, there needed to be something to bang and there needed to be gravity.
If the universe created itself, it means for example that you saw a bright light in a room with absolutely no opening for light i.e. light from nothing.
There needed to be gravity, there was none. There needed to be something to bang, there was none because there was nothing, just like a dark sealed room.
The thing to bang and gravity was put there.

[Ooberman]

In case my above post isn't clear (or unintelligible and since i can't edit), let me rephrase.
For the big bang to occur, there needed to be something to bang and there needed to be gravity.
If the universe created itself, it means for example that you saw a bright light in a room with absolutely no opening for light i.e. light from nothing.
There needed to be gravity, there was none. There needed to be something to bang, there was none because there was nothing, just like a dark sealed room.
The thing to bang and gravity was put there.

Are you talking about the observable universe or the larger universe in which our observable universe is expanding within?

[Jashwell]

In case my above post isn't clear (or unintelligible and since i can't edit), let me rephrase.
For the big bang to occur, there needed to be something to bang and there needed to be gravity.
If the universe created itself, it means for example that you saw a bright light in a room with absolutely no opening for light i.e. light from nothing.
There needed to be gravity, there was none. There needed to be something to bang, there was none because there was nothing, just like a dark sealed room.
The thing to bang and gravity was put there.

Why did there need to be gravity?

Light from nothing happens regularly. Photons are virtual particles, they regularly come into existence ex nihilo - no energy needed - and disappear after a brief interval of time. If it didn't happen, the Universe would not work

The Big Bang deals with the transition from an extremely dense point to the Universe as we observe it today. That's why it's called the birth of the Universe as we know it. That doesn't necessarily mean the beginning of everything.

Our physics currently don't work at dealing with gravitational singularities, because we don't have a complete theory of quantum gravity.

The Big Bang theory doesn't necessarily deal with cosmogenesis.

"The thing to bang and gravity was put there."
Could you elaborate?

[Ooberman]

The thing to bang and gravity was put there.

How do you know this? How do you demonstrate this?

Where do I look to see this?

What evidence do you have that this happened? the stars in the sky? They don't look like they "banged". They are just sitting there.


How do you know there was a Big Bang? Why do you believe in the Big Bang?

When I look at the sky, I don't see an explosion.


Claiming God made the Universe by a Big Bang is like saying I'm going to build a 747 by setting off a bomb in a junk yard.

[heavensgate]

Creationists can and do explain these things, and the changes fit very well into the creationist model of origins. As noted before in this discussion, what you say about the geographical spread of humans across the globe has a huge bearing on our final attributes of colour, size etc, etc. Essentially though, one race, and one origin. We are all still human. We call the changes environmental selection, this is not added information in the gene pool, in fact white people have most likely suffered a loss of information, which when interbreeding occurs can be restored. That is why we should all consider ourselves one race, just different families.
Change is not evolution. Changing into something else is. It's the "something else" is where we part company.

Change over time is the definition of evolution. Please tell me how this "environmental change" caused Asians to have smaller eyes and smaller statures. Tell me how Africans became black. P!ease, also explain what the first skin color was with your environmental change?

Well firstly, Black people did not so much become black as it is more like white people became white. Whiteness is a diminishing of melanin in the skin which actually represents a net loss of genetic information (Therefor in the skin colour department, black people have a richer pool of information). It is likely that the original skin colour was mid to dark brown or earth colour. Adam (Red) was made from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7) which would fit this idea. Also from this originating colour in the genetic data, one could get all the variation from Black to White as we see today. We are talking about 20 cents worth of chemical, we are all closely related.
As you posted, separation (geographically) would be one of the prime factors in variation. So a fatty layer of tissue in the eyelid of the Asian can easily be explained by that mechanism. Traits heightened by isolation from other potential variants will bring out these (superficial) changes and be ingrained in that population.
This is all from an original gene pool replete with potential for variance. Environmental pressures are not the only possibility. Selection may yet be found to be selected internally from within the pool of information to cater for extreme changes (such as animal shedding or growing coats, dependant on the environmental factors. Not new info, but old info specialised).

The timeframe for evolution depends on the basic philosophy of evolution and itself is a circular argument. This is why the evolutionary time is expanding at a great rate of knots most of the time. This is why the ToE is too plastic and flexible to be called a science in its own right. (even though it is, just don't ask me to believe it).

Biological Evolution is not a philosophy. If it were, it would be deemed as such. The definition of evolution is "change over time." So yes time is required. You just will not allow vast amounts of time to have happened based on an ancient text. So you are force to try and cram all of the evidence into a short period of time, and that obviously doesn't work. Since, that doesn't work, you attribute god, even though evolution in time explains it.

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I don't see it as forcing a short period of time on the whole scenario at all. One could say that in the ever changing evolutionary timeframes, the only one forcing is evolution.
True, I admit I have a high view of the Bible, and if I am wrong then so be it. There is still nothing I see in evolutionary thinking that compels me to believe the billions of years scenario.[/table]

[heavensgate]

So far here, I think I am the only one giving reasons. A simple dismiss of Intelligent Design (ID) is not a scientific answer either. It is actually a scientific Hypothesis.

No. Actually it is not. It is a scientific hypothesis like astrology is a scientific hypothesis. "God did it" is not a hypothesis, it is a conclusion based on a religion, not on scientific data.

"Intelligent design is not a testable theory and as such is not generally accepted by the scientific community."_ testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover

"The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory. (page 43)" _ finding of the court

I cant actually respond to the Dover/Kitzmiller trial. I would need to research that before I would answer. But, what I have said before, creationists and evolutionists have exactly the same data references. So ID is a reasonable hypothesis (design) as against evolutionary cosmology and biology (chance) is an hypothesis from the same data. As I alluded to previously, Can you tell me if a scientist can produce useful products and research without any creationist or evolutionary theories of origins?
Yes they can, and yes, they do. Take all the evolutionary ideas from biology (and creationist for that matter) and biology will do quite well (maybe better) without it.
There is clearly a shutting out of alternative views of the Modern Synthesis (Darwinian selection), this includes ID but as well alternative evolutionary views.
Altenberg 16 is a good read in that it does show where divergence in thinking in the evolutionary camp is occurring. But it is all very polite and in house except where ID is concerned. It MUST be shut out at all costs. We cannot allow a Divine foot in the door, so to speak.
This is no conspiracy, this is quite clear from materials in the public arena.

[heavensgate]

When bones are dug up, they do not come with a tag saying how old they are. They are in fact a piece of bone.

I didn't understand much of what you said, or at least didn't see an argument fully developed. But I understood at least one thing, quoted above.

Your remark about an age 'tag' is erroneous. Fossils do come with age 'tags.' Since radiometrics is a well established technique for dating fossils, do you have some new evidence or discovery that suggests otherwise?

Have you not wondered about the anomalies in the dating method. A single lab can date the same material at wildly distant ages.
What happens in reality is a bone is found somewhere in the geologic column. Then the scientist will expect (before any testing is done) that the age of it should fall into a certain bracket. What is most important, is that the results from the lab fit the ages in the geologic column. Any aberrant data ignored. Ever heard that scenario?
This subject though is probably a discussion apart and is morphing from the OP.
There is significant research to suggest that dating methods have not taken into account of many factors and may be up for a major rethink anyway.
PS I did not think my post was that convoluted that you could not make out what I was saying?

Please provide evidence that the same lab will have 'wildly diffferent ages' for the same material. Back up your claim, and show that you speak accurately. Show the source for your claim, and demonstrate that they are reliable.[/quote]

http://creation.com/radio-dating-in-rubble

In June of 1992, Dr Austin B.S. ((Geology), University of Washington, Seattle, WA,1970-M.S. (Geology), San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, 1971
Ph.D. (Geology), Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 1979))
collected a 7-kg (15-lb) block of dacite from high on the lava dome. A portion of this sample was crushed and milled into a fine powder. Another piece was crushed and the various mineral crystals were carefully separated out.3 The whole rock rock powder and four mineral concentrates were submitted for potassium-argon analysis to Geochron Laboratories of Cambridge, MA"a high-quality, professional radioisotope-dating laboratory. The only information provided to the laboratory was that the samples came from dacite and that low argon should be expected. The laboratory was not told that the specimen came from the lava dome at Mount St Helens and was only 10 years old.

The results of this analysis are shown in Table 1. What do we see? First and foremost that they are wrong. A correct answer would have been zero argon indicating that the sample was too young to date by this method. Instead, the results ranged from 340,000 to 2.8 million years! Why? Obviously, the assumptions were wrong, and this invalidates the dating method. Probably some argon-40 was incorporated into the rock initially, giving the appearance of great age. Note also that the results from the different samples of the same rock disagree with each other.

It is clear that radioisotope dating is not the gold standard of dating methods, or proof for millions of years of Earth history. When the method is tested on rocks of known age, it fails miserably. The lava dome at Mount St Helens is not a million years old! At the time of the test, it was only about 10 years old. In this case we were there"we know! How then can we accept radiometric-dating results on rocks of unknown age? This challenges those who promote the faith of radioisotope dating, especially when it contradicts the clear eyewitness chronology of the Word of God.

Table 1. Potassium-argon ages for whole rock and mineral concentrate samples from the lava dome at Mount St Helens (from Austin1).

Sample Age / millions of years
1 Whole rock 0.35 0.05
2 Feldspar, etc. 0.34 0.06
3 Amphibole, etc. 0.9 0.2
4 Pyroxene, etc. 1.7 0.3
5 Pyroxene 2.8 0.6

[Danmark]

So far here, I think I am the only one giving reasons. A simple dismiss of Intelligent Design (ID) is not a scientific answer either. It is actually a scientific Hypothesis.

No. Actually it is not. It is a scientific hypothesis like astrology is a scientific hypothesis. "God did it" is not a hypothesis, it is a conclusion based on a religion, not on scientific data.

"Intelligent design is not a testable theory and as such is not generally accepted by the scientific community."_ testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover

"The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory. (page 43)" _ finding of the court

I cant actually respond to the Dover/Kitzmiller trial. I would need to research that before I would answer.

Thank you for your plain speaking. What you are saying is that you can NOT respond to Kitzmiller v. Dover because you have NOT done the research. What you are saying is that you WANT to respond because you WANT to show that your bias is justified, but you cannot. You just don't like the result the facts demand.

This is the opposite of the scientific method. You choose the result you want, THEN you want to find the research to back up the result you hope to justify. Do you think the creationist plaintiffs and witnesses [several of whom were found to have perjured themselves] did not also hope to 'research' the facts to convince the judge he should find for them? They not only failed to persuade the court, but they were found to have lied to the court. We're not dealing here with your make believe hopes and beliefs, but with real facts and a real case. The claim you support lost and its advocates found to have lied in court in their failed effort to put over a false belief. It appears that nothing will convince you that you are wrong, no matter how much the facts demonstrate you are wrong. But please, let us know when your 'research' shows otherwise.